On the occasion of my seventieth birthday in 1877, I was the recipient of many tokens of esteem. The publishers of the _Atlantic Monthly_ gave a dinner in my name, and the editor of _The Literary World_ gathered in his paper many affectionate messages from my associates in literature and the cause of human progress. The lines which follow were written in acknowledgment.
Beside that milestone where the level sun, Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays On word and work irrevocably done, Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise, Half doubtful if myself or otherwise.
Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke.
Thanks not the less. With not unglad surprise I see my life-work through your partial eyes; Assured, in giving to my home-taught songs A higher value than of right belongs, You do but read between the written lines The finer grace of unfulfilled designs.
AT EVENTIDE.
Poor and inadequate the shadow-play Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream, Against life's solemn background needs must seem At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully, I call to mind the fountains by the way, The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray, Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving And of receiving, the great boon of living In grand historic years when Liberty Had need of word and work, quick sympathies For all who fail and suffer, song's relief, Nature's uncloying loveliness; and chief, The kind restraining hand of Providence, The inward witness, the assuring sense Of an Eternal Good which overlies The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives To the uttermost, and Justice whose clear eyes Through lapse and failure look to the intent, And judge our frailty by the life we meant.
1878.
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE.
The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the author himself they have a special interest from the fact that they were written, or improvised, under the eye and for the amusement of a beloved invalid friend whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich.
A shallow stream, from fountains Deep in the Sandwich mountains, Ran lake ward Bearcamp River; And, between its flood-torn shores, Sped by sail or urged by oars No keel had vexed it ever.
Alone the dead trees yielding To the dull axe Time is wielding, The shy mink and the otter, And golden leaves and red, By countless autumns shed, Had floated down its water.
From the gray rocks of Cape Ann, Came a skilled seafaring man, With his dory, to the right place; Over hill and plain he brought her, Where the boatless Beareamp water Comes winding down from White-Face.
Quoth the skipper: "Ere she floats forth; I'm sure my pretty boat's worth, At least, a name as pretty."
On her painted side he wrote it, And the flag that o'er her floated Bore aloft the name of Jettie.
On a radiant morn of summer, Elder guest and latest comer Saw her wed the Bearcamp water; Heard the name the skipper gave her, And the answer to the favor From the Bay State's graceful daughter.
Then, a singer, richly gifted, Her charmed voice uplifted; And the wood-thrush and song-sparrow Listened, dumb with envious pain, To the clear and sweet refrain Whose notes they could not borrow.
Then the skipper plied his oar, And from off the shelving shore, Glided out the strange explorer; Floating on, she knew not whither,-- The tawny sands beneath her, The great hills watching o'er her.
On, where the stream flows quiet As the meadows' margins by it, Or widens out to borrow a New life from that wild water, The mountain giant's daughter, The pine-besung Chocorua.
Or, mid the tangling cumber And pack of mountain lumber That spring floods downward force, Over sunken snag, and bar Where the grating shallows are, The good boat held her course.
Under the pine-dark highlands, Around the vine-hung islands, She ploughed her crooked furrow And her rippling and her lurches Scared the river eels and perches, And the musk-rat in his burrow.
Every sober clam below her, Every sage and grave pearl-grower, Shut his rusty valves the tighter; Crow called to crow complaining, And old tortoises sat craning Their leathern necks to sight her.
So, to where the still lake glasses The misty mountain masses Rising dim and distant northward, And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures, Low shores, and dead pine spectres, Blends the skyward and the earthward,
On she glided, overladen, With merry man and maiden Sending back their song and laughter,-- While, perchance, a phantom crew, In a ghostly birch canoe, Paddled dumb and swiftly after!
And the bear on Ossipee Climbed the topmost crag to see The strange thing drifting under; And, through the haze of August, Passaconaway and Paugus Looked down in sleepy wonder.
All the pines that o'er her hung In mimic sea-tones sung The song familiar to her; And the maples leaned to screen her, And the meadow-grass seemed greener, And the breeze more soft to woo her.
The lone stream mystery-haunted, To her the freedom granted To scan its every feature, Till new and old were blended, And round them both extended The loving arms of Nature.
Of these hills the little vessel Henceforth is part and parcel; And on Bearcamp shall her log Be kept, as if by George's Or Grand Menan, the surges Tossed her skipper through the fog.
And I, who, half in sadness, Recall the morning gladness Of life, at evening time, By chance, onlooking idly, Apart from all so widely, Have set her voyage to rhyme.
Dies now the gay persistence Of song and laugh, in distance; Alone with me remaining The stream, the quiet meadow, The hills in shine and shadow, The sombre pines complaining.
And, musing here, I dream Of voyagers on a stream From whence is no returning, Under sealed orders going, Looking forward little knowing, Looking back with idle yearning.
And I pray that every venture The port of peace may enter, That, safe from snag and fall And siren-haunted islet, And rock, the Unseen Pilot May guide us one and all.
1880.
MY TRUST.
A picture memory brings to me I look across the years and see Myself beside my mother's knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain My selfish moods, and know again A child's blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now, a man gray grown, My childhood's needs are better known, My mother's chastening love I own.
Gray grown, but in our Father's sight A child still groping for the light To read His works and ways aright.
I wait, in His good time to see That as my mother dealt with me So with His children dealeth He.
I bow myself beneath His hand That pain itself was wisely planned I feel, and partly understand.
The joy that comes in sorrow's guise, The sweet pains of self-sacrifice, I would not have them otherwise.
And what were life and death if sin Knew not the dread rebuke within, The pang of merciful discipline?
Not with thy proud despair of old, Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould!
Pleasure and pain alike I hold.
I suffer with no vain pretence Of triumph over flesh and sense, Yet trust the grievous providence,
How dark soe'er it seems, may tend, By ways I cannot comprehend, To some unguessed benignant end;
That every loss and lapse may gain The clear-aired heights by steps of pain, And never cross is borne in vain.
1880.