Swift as their summons came they left The plough mid-furrow standing still, The half-ground corn grist in the mill, The spade in earth, the axe in cleft.
They went where duty seemed to call, They scarcely asked the reason why; They only knew they could but die, And death was not the worst of all!
Of man for man the sacrifice, All that was theirs to give, they gave.
The flowers that blossomed from their grave Have sown themselves beneath all skies.
Their death-shot shook the feudal tower, And shattered slavery's chain as well; On the sky's dome, as on a bell, Its echo struck the world's great hour.
That fateful echo is not dumb The nations listening to its sound Wait, from a century's vantage-ground, The holier triumphs yet to come,--
The bridal time of Law and Love, The gladness of the world's release, When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace The hawk shall nestle with the dove!--
The golden age of brotherhood Unknown to other rivalries Than of the mild humanities, And gracious interchange of good,
When closer strand shall lean to strand, Till meet, beneath saluting flags, The eagle of our mountain-crags, The lion of our Motherland!
1875.
THE LIBRARY.
Sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, November 11, 1875.
"Let there be light!" God spake of old, And over chaos dark and cold, And through the dead and formless frame Of nature, life and order came.
Faint was the light at first that shone On giant fern and mastodon, On half-formed plant and beast of prey, And man as rude and wild as they.
Age after age, like waves, o'erran The earth, uplifting brute and man; And mind, at length, in symbols dark Its meanings traced on stone and bark.
On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll, On plastic clay and leathern scroll, Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, And to! the Press was found at last!
Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men Whose bones were dust revived again; The cloister's silence found a tongue, Old prophets spake, old poets sung.
And here, to-day, the dead look down, The kings of mind again we crown; We hear the voices lost so long, The sage's word, the sibyl's song.
Here Greek and Roman find themselves Alive along these crowded shelves; And Shakespeare treads again his stage, And Chaucer paints anew his age.
As if some Pantheon's marbles broke Their stony trance, and lived and spoke, Life thrills along the alcoved hall, The lords of thought await our call!
"I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN."
An incident in St. Augustine, Florida.
'Neath skies that winter never knew The air was full of light and balm, And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew Through orange bloom and groves of palm.
A stranger from the frozen North, Who sought the fount of health in vain, Sank homeless on the alien earth, And breathed the languid air with pain.
God's angel came! The tender shade Of pity made her blue eye dim; Against her woman's breast she laid The drooping, fainting head of him.
She bore him to a pleasant room, Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air, And watched beside his bed, for whom His far-off sisters might not care.
She fanned his feverish brow and smoothed Its lines of pain with tenderest touch.
With holy hymn and prayer she soothed The trembling soul that feared so much.
Through her the peace that passeth sight Came to him, as he lapsed away As one whose troubled dreams of night Slide slowly into tranquil day.
The sweetness of the Land of Flowers Upon his lonely grave she laid The jasmine dropped its golden showers, The orange lent its bloom and shade.
And something whispered in her thought, More sweet than mortal voices be "The service thou for him hast wrought O daughter! hath been done for me."
1875.
CENTENNIAL HYMN.
Written for the opening of the International Exhibition, Philadelphia, May 10, 1876. The music for the hymn was written by John K. Paine, and may be found in The Atlantic Monthly for June, 1876.
I.
Our fathers' God! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free, And loyal to our land and Thee, To thank Thee for the era done, And trust Thee for the opening one.
II.
Here, where of old, by Thy design, The fathers spake that word of Thine Whose echo is the glad refrain Of rended bolt and falling chain, To grace our festal time, from all The zones of earth our guests we call.
III.
Be with us while the New World greets The Old World thronging all its streets, Unveiling all the triumphs won By art or toil beneath the sun; And unto common good ordain This rivalship of hand and brain.
IV.
Thou, who hast here in concord furled The war flags of a gathered world, Beneath our Western skies fulfil The Orient's mission of good-will, And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, Send back its Argonauts of peace.
V.
For art and labor met in truce, For beauty made the bride of use, We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave The austere virtues strong to save, The honor proof to place or gold, The manhood never bought nor sold.
VI.
Oh make Thou us, through centuries long, In peace secure, in justice strong; Around our gift of freedom draw The safeguards of Thy righteous law And, cast in some diviner mould, Let the new cycle shame the old!
AT SCHOOL-CLOSE. BOWDOIN STREET, BOSTON, 1877.