Green memorials of the gleeman I Linking still the river-shores, With their shadows cast by sunset, Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!
When the Father of his Country Through the north-land riding came, And the roofs were starred with banners, And the steeples rang acclaim,--
When each war-scarred Continental, Leaving smithy, mill, and farm, Waved his rusted sword in welcome, And shot off his old king's arm,--
Slowly passed that August Presence Down the thronged and shouting street; Village girls as white as angels, Scattering flowers around his feet.
Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow Deepest fell, his rein he drew On his stately head, uncovered, Cool and soft the west-wind blew.
And he stood up in his stirrups, Looking up and looking down On the hills of Gold and Silver Rimming round the little town,--
On the river, full of sunshine, To the lap of greenest vales Winding down from wooded headlands, Willow-skirted, white with sails.
And he said, the landscape sweeping Slowly with his ungloved hand, "I have seen no prospect fairer In this goodly Eastern land."
Then the bugles of his escort Stirred to life the cavalcade And that head, so bare and stately, Vanished down the depths of shade.
Ever since, in town and farm-house, Life has had its ebb and flow; Thrice hath passed the human harvest To its garner green and low.
But the trees the gleeman planted, Through the changes, changeless stand; As the marble calm of Tadmor Mocks the desert's shifting sand.
Still the level moon at rising Silvers o'er each stately shaft; Still beneath them, half in shadow, Singing, glides the pleasure craft;
Still beneath them, arm-enfolded, Love and Youth together stray; While, as heart to heart beats faster, More and more their feet delay.
Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, On the open hillside wrought, Singing, as he drew his stitches, Songs his German masters taught,
Singing, with his gray hair floating Round his rosy ample face,-- Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen Stitch and hammer in his place.
All the pastoral lanes so grassy Now are Traffic's dusty streets; From the village, grown a city, Fast the rural grace retreats.
But, still green, and tall, and stately, On the river's winding shores, Stand the Occidental plane-trees, Stand, Hugh Taliant's sycamores.
1857.
THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.
An incident of the Sepoy mutiny.
PIPES of the misty moorlands, Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills!
Not the braes of broom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your sweetest strain!
Dear to the Lowland reaper, And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The Scottish pipes are dear;-- Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch O'er mountain, loch, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The pipes at Lucknow played.
Day by day the Indian tiger Louder yelled, and nearer crept; Round and round the jungle-serpent Near and nearer circles swept.
"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-- Pray to-day!" the soldier said; "To-morrow, death's between us And the wrong and shame we dread."
Oh, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair; And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground "Dinna ye hear it?--dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound!"
Hushed the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true;-- As her mother's cradle-crooning The mountain pipes she knew.
Like the march of soundless music Through the vision of the seer, More of feeling than of hearing, Of the heart than of the ear, She knew the droning pibroch, She knew the Campbell's call "Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's, The grandest o' them all!"
Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless, And they caught the sound at last; Faint and far beyond the Goomtee Rose and fell the piper's blast Then a burst of wild thanksgiving Mingled woman's voice and man's; "God be praised!--the march of Havelock!
The piping of the clans!"
Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, Stinging all the air to life.
But when the far-off dust-cloud To plaided legions grew, Full tenderly and blithesomely The pipes of rescue blew!
Round the silver domes of Lucknow, Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, Breathed the air to Britons dearest, The air of Auld Lang Syne.
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums Rose that sweet and homelike strain; And the tartan clove the turban, As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.
Dear to the corn-land reaper And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch O'er mountain, glen, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played!
1858.
TELLING THE BEES.
A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.
HERE is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred, And the poplars tall; And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the beehives ranged in the sun; And down by the brink Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, Heavy and slow; And the same rose blooms, and the same sun glows, And the same brook sings of a year ago.
There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze; And the June sun warm Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
I mind me how with a lover's care From my Sunday coat I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.
Since we parted, a month had passed,-- To love, a year; Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
I can see it all now,--the slantwise rain Of light through the leaves, The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
Just the same as a month before,-- The house and the trees, The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,-- Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, Draping each hive with a shred of black.