{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9565/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9565","id":"gutenberg_9565","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9565","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- 19th century","Category: American Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry"],"text":"This eBook was produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n                        NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY\n\n                                 POEMS\n\n                                   BY\n                        JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nTHE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM\n     INTRODUCTORY NOTE\n     PRELUDE\n     THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM\n\nKING VOLMER AND ELSIE\nTHE THREE BELLS\nJOHN UNDERHILL\nCONDUCTOR BRADLEY\nTHE WITCH OF WENHAM\nKING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS\nIN THE \"OLD SOUTH\"\nTHE HENCHMAN\nTHE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK\nTHE KHAN'S DEVIL\nTHE KING'S MISSIVE\nVALUATION\nRABBI ISHMAEL\nTHE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE\n\n\n\n\nTHE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM.\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE.\n\nTHE beginning of German emigration to America may be traced to the\npersonal influence of William Penn, who in 1677 visited the Continent,\nand made the acquaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated circle\nof Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seventeenth century the\nspiritual faith and worship of Tauler and the \"Friends of God\" in the\nfourteenth, gathered about the pastor Spener, and the young and\nbeautiful Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the\nFrankfort Land Company, which bought of William Penn, the Governor of\nPennsylvania, a tract of land near the new city of Philadelphia. The\ncompany's agent in the New World was a rising young lawyer, Francis\nDaniel Pastorius, son of Judge Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age\nof seventeen, entered the University of Altorf. He studied law at,\nStrasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Imperial\nGovernment, obtained a practical knowledge of international polity.\nSuccessful in all his examinations and disputations, he received the\ndegree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a\nlaw-lecturer at Frankfort, where he became deeply interested in the\nteachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680-81 he travelled in France, England,\nIreland, and Italy with his friend Herr Von Rodeck. \"I was,\" he says,\n\"glad to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, rather than be\nwith Von Rodeck feasting and dancing.\" In 1683, in company with a small\nnumber of German Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the\nFrankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware\nrivers. The township was divided into four hamlets, namely, Germantown,\nKrisheim, Crefield, and Sommerhausen. Soon after his arrival he united\nhimself with the Society of Friends, and became one of its most able and\ndevoted members, as well as the recognized head and lawgiver of the\nsettlement. He married, two years after his arrival, Anneke (Anna),\ndaughter of Dr. Klosterman, of Muhlheim. In the year 1688 he drew up a\nmemorial against slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown\nFriends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly\nMeeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first protest made by\na religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was\ndiscovered in 1844 by the Philadelphia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, and\npublished in The Friend (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It is a bold and direct\nappeal to the best instincts of the heart. \"Have not,\" he asks, \"these\nnegroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep\nthem slaves?\" Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the German-town\nsettlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants planted orchards and\nvineyards, and surrounded themselves with souvenirs of their old home.\nA large number of them were linen-weavers, as well as small farmers.\nThe Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were\ntolerated, and lived together in harmony. In 1692 Richard Frame\npublished, in what he called verse, a Description of Pennsylvania, in\nwhich he alludes to the settlement:--\n\n      \"The German town of which I spoke before,\n      Which is at least in length one mile or more,\n      Where lives High German people and Low Dutch,\n      Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much,\n      --There grows the flax, as also you may know\n      That from the same they do divide the tow.\n      Their trade suits well their habitation,\n      We find convenience for their occupation.\"\n\nPastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with William Penn, Thomas\nLloyd, Chief Justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the\nProvince belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kelpius,\nthe learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes'\nchurch, and the leaders of the Mennonites. He wrote a description of\nPennsylvania, which was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1700 and\n1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in German and dedicated to\nProfessor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left\nbehind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of\nsubjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio,\nentitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium, still\nremains, containing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a\npage. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and\npoetry, written in seven languages. A large portion of his poetry is\ndevoted to the pleasures of gardening, the description of flowers, and\nthe care of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is\naddressed to an orchard-pilferer:--\n\n      \"Quisquis in haec furtim reptas viridaria nostra\n      Tangere fallaci poma caveto mane,\n      Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto,\n      Cum malis nostris ut mala cuncta feras.\"\n\nProfessor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose papers in Der Deutsche Pioneer\nand that able periodical the Penn Monthly, of Philadelphia, I am\nindebted for many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German\npilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of Pastorius:--\n\"No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates where his remains\nhave found their last resting-place, and the pardonable desire to\nassociate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible\nmemento can not be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he was\ninterred in any other place than the Friends' old burying-ground in\nGermantown, though the fact is not attested by any definite source of\ninformation. After all, this obliteration of the last trace of his\nearthly existence is but typical of what has overtaken the times which\nhe represents; that Germantown which he founded, which saw him live and\nmove, is at present but a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely\nremembered and little cared for by the keener race that has succeeded.\nThe Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian and poet. Justice has\nbeen done to their faith, courage, and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty\ninfluence of their endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth.\nThe Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same object by\ndifferent means, have not been equally fortunate. The power of their\ntestimony for truth and holiness, peace and freedom, enforced only by\nwhat Milton calls \"the unresistible might of meekness,\" has been felt\nthrough two centuries in the amelioration of penal severities, the\nabolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, the relief of the poor\nand suffering,--felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But of\nthe men themselves, with the single exception of William Penn, scarcely\nanything is known. Contrasted, from the outset, with the stern,\naggressive Puritans of New England, they have come to be regarded as\n\"a feeble folk,\" with a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded\ngraves. They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish; they had no figure\nso picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave and haughty as\nEndicott. No Cotton Mather wrote their Magnalia; they had no awful drama\nof supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were actors; and the\nonly witch mentioned in their simple annals was a poor old Swedish\nwoman, who, on complaint of her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted\nof everything but imbecility and folly. Nothing but common-place offices\nof civility came to pass between them and the Indians; indeed, their\nenemies taunted them with the fact that the savages did not regard them\nas Christians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it must be apparent\nto every careful observer of the progress of American civilization that\nits two principal currents had their sources in the entirely opposite\ndirections of the Puritan and Quaker colonies. To use the words of a\nlate writer: [1] \"The historical forces, with which no others may be\ncompared in their influence on the people, have been those of the\nPuritan and the Quaker. The strength of the one was in the confession of\nan invisible Presence, a righteous, eternal Will, which would establish\nrighteousness on earth; and thence arose the conviction of a direct\npersonal responsibility, which could be tempted by no external splendor\nand could be shaken by no internal agitation, and could not be evaded or\ntransferred. The strength of the other was the witness in the human\nspirit to an eternal Word, an Inner Voice which spoke to each alone,\nwhile yet it spoke to every man; a Light which each was to follow, and\nwhich yet was the light of the world; and all other voices were silent\nbefore this, and the solitary path whither it led was more sacred than\nthe worn ways of cathedral-aisles.\" It will be sufficiently apparent to\nthe reader that, in the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing\nbeyond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania colonist,--a\nsimple picture of a noteworthy man and his locality. The colors of my\nsketch are all very sober, toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere\nthrough which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and tumult\nof the present time, such a picture will find favor may well be\nquestioned. I only know that it has beguiled for me some hours of\nweariness, and that, whatever may be its measure of public appreciation,\nit has been to me its own reward.\"\n                                               J. G. W.\nAMESBURY, 5th mo., 1872.\n\n\nHAIL to posterity!\nHail, future men of Germanopolis!\nLet the young generations yet to be\nLook kindly upon this.\nThink how your fathers left their native land,--\nDear German-land! O sacred hearths and homes!--\n\nAnd, where the wild beast roams,\nIn patience planned\nNew forest-homes beyond the mighty sea,\nThere undisturbed and free\nTo live as brothers of one family.\nWhat pains and cares befell,\nWhat trials and what fears,\nRemember, and wherein we have done well\nFollow our footsteps, men of coming years!\nWhere we have failed to do\nAright, or wisely live,\nBe warned by us, the better way pursue,\nAnd, knowing we were human, even as you,\nPity us and forgive!\nFarewell, Posterity!\nFarewell, dear Germany\nForevermore farewell!\n\n[From the Latin of Francis DANIEL PASTORIUS in\nthe Germantown Records. 1688.]\n\n\n\n\nPRELUDE.\nI SING the Pilgrim of a softer clime\nAnd milder speech than those brave men's who brought\nTo the ice and iron of our winter time\nA will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought\nWith one mailed hand, and with the other fought.\nSimply, as fits my theme, in homely rhyme\nI sing the blue-eyed German Spener taught,\nThrough whose veiled, mystic faith the Inward Light,\nSteady and still, an easy brightness, shone,\nTransfiguring all things in its radiance white.\nThe garland which his meekness never sought\nI bring him; over fields of harvest sown\nWith seeds of blessing, now to ripeness grown,\nI bid the sower pass before the reapers' sight.\n\n              . . . . . . . . . .\n\nNever in tenderer quiet lapsed the day\nFrom Pennsylvania's vales of spring away,\nWhere, forest-walled, the scattered hamlets lay\n\nAlong the wedded rivers. One long bar\nOf purple cloud, on which the evening star\nShone like a jewel on a scimitar,\n\nHeld the sky's golden gateway. Through the deep\nHush of the woods a murmur seemed to creep,\nThe Schuylkill whispering in a voice of sleep.\n\nAll else was still. The oxen from their ploughs\nRested at last, and from their long day's browse\nCame the dun files of Krisheim's home-bound cows.\n\nAnd the young city, round whose virgin zone\nThe rivers like two mighty arms were thrown,\nMarked by the smoke of evening fires alone,\n\nLay in the distance, lovely even then\nWith its fair women and its stately men\nGracing the forest court of William Penn,\n\nUrban yet sylvan; in its rough-hewn frames\nOf oak and pine the dryads held their claims,\nAnd lent its streets their pleasant woodland names.\n\nAnna Pastorius down the leafy lane\nLooked city-ward, then stooped to prune again\nHer vines and simples, with a sigh of pain.\n\nFor fast the streaks of ruddy sunset paled\nIn the oak clearing, and, as daylight failed,\nSlow, overhead, the dusky night-birds sailed.\n\nAgain she looked: between green walls of shade,\nWith low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed,\nDaniel Pastorius slowly came and said,\n\n\"God's peace be with thee, Anna!\" Then he stood\nSilent before her, wrestling with the mood\nOf one who sees the evil and not good.\n\n\"What is it, my Pastorius?\" As she spoke,\nA slow, faint smile across his features broke,\nSadder than tears. \"Dear heart,\" he said, \"our folk\n\n\"Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends\nAre frail; our elders have their selfish ends,\nAnd few dare trust the Lord to make amends\n\n\"For duty's loss. So even our feeble word\nFor the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard\nAs if a stone its quiet waters stirred;\n\n\"And, as the clerk ceased reading, there began\nA ripple of dissent which downward ran\nIn widening circles, as from man to man.\n\n\"Somewhat was said of running before sent,\nOf tender fear that some their guide outwent,\nTroublers of Israel. I was scarce intent\n\n\"On hearing, for behind the reverend row\nOf gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show,\nI saw, methought, dark faces full of woe.\n\n\"And, in the spirit, I was taken where\nThey toiled and suffered; I was made aware\nOf shame and wrath and anguish and despair!\n\n\"And while the meeting smothered our poor plea\nWith cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed to be,\nAs ye have done to these ye do to me!'\n\n\"So it all passed; and the old tithe went on\nOf anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun\nSet, leaving still the weightier work undone.\n\n\"Help, for the good man faileth! Who is strong,\nIf these be weak? Who shall rebuke the wrong,\nIf these consent? How long, O Lord! how long!\"\n\nHe ceased; and, bound in spirit with the bound,\nWith folded arms, and eyes that sought the ground,\nWalked musingly his little garden round.\n\nAbout him, beaded with the falling dew,\nRare plants of power and herbs of healing grew,\nSuch as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew.\n\nFor, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage,\nWith the mild mystics of his dreamy age\nHe read the herbal signs of nature's page,\n\nAs once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's' bowers\nFair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours,\nThe pious Spener read his creed in flowers.\n\n\"The dear Lord give us patience!\" said his wife,\nTouching with finger-tip an aloe, rife\nWith leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife\n\nOr Carib spear, a gift to William Penn\nFrom the rare gardens of John Evelyn,\nBrought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen.\n\n\"See this strange plant its steady purpose hold,\nAnd, year by year, its patient leaves unfold,\nTill the young eyes that watched it first are old.\n\n\"But some time, thou hast told me, there shall come\nA sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume,\nThe century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom.\n\n\"So may the seed which hath been sown to-day\nGrow with the years, and, after long delay,\nBreak into bloom, and God's eternal Yea!\n\n\"Answer at last the patient prayers of them\nWho now, by faith alone, behold its stem\nCrowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem.\n\n\"Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and wait,\nRemains for us. The wrong indeed is great,\nBut love and patience conquer soon or late.\"\n\n\"Well hast thou said, my Anna!\" Tenderer\nThan youth's caress upon the head of her\nPastorius laid his hand. \"Shall we demur\n\n\"Because the vision tarrieth? In an hour\nWe dream not of, the slow-grown bud may flower,\nAnd what was sown in weakness rise in power!\"\n\nThen through the vine-draped door whose legend read,\n\"Procul este profani!\" Anna led\nTo where their child upon his little bed\n\nLooked up and smiled. \"Dear heart,\" she said, \"if we\nMust bearers of a heavy burden be,\nOur boy, God willing, yet the day shall see\n\n\"When from the gallery to the farthest seat,\nSlave and slave-owner shall no longer meet,\nBut all sit equal at the Master's feet.\"\n\nOn the stone hearth the blazing walnut block\nSet the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock\nRebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock,\n\nShone on old tomes of law and physic, side\nBy side with Fox and Belimen, played at hide\nAnd seek with Anna, midst her household pride\n\nOf flaxen webs, and on the table, bare\nOf costly cloth or silver cup, but where,\nTasting the fat shads of the Delaware,\n\nThe courtly Penn had praised the goodwife's cheer,\nAnd quoted Horace o'er her home brewed beer,\nTill even grave Pastorius smiled to hear.\n\nIn such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave,\nHe dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave\nFood to the poor and shelter to the slave.\n\nFor all too soon the New World's scandal shamed\nThe righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed,\nAnd men withheld the human rights they claimed.\n\nAnd slowly wealth and station sanction lent,\nAnd hardened avarice, on its gains intent,\nStifled the inward whisper of dissent.\n\nYet all the while the burden rested sore\nOn tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore\nTheir warning message to the Church's door\n\nIn God's name; and the leaven of the word\nWrought ever after in the souls who heard,\nAnd a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred\n\nTo troubled life, and urged the vain excuse\nOf Hebrew custom, patriarchal use,\nGood in itself if evil in abuse.\n\nGravely Pastorius listened, not the less\nDiscerning through the decent fig-leaf dress\nOf the poor plea its shame of selfishness.\n\nOne Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot;\nHe hid the outcast, and betrayed him not;\nAnd, when his prey the human hunter sought,\n\nHe scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay\nAnd proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay,\nTo speed the black guest safely on his way.\n\nYet, who shall guess his bitter grief who lends\nHis life to some great cause, and finds his friends\nShame or betray it for their private ends?\n\nHow felt the Master when his chosen strove\nIn childish folly for their seats above;\nAnd that fond mother, blinded by her love,\n\nBesought him that her sons, beside his throne,\nMight sit on either hand? Amidst his own\nA stranger oft, companionless and lone,\n\nGod's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's pain\nIs not alone from scourge and cell and chain;\nSharper the pang when, shouting in his train,\n\nHis weak disciples by their lives deny\nThe loud hosannas of their daily cry,\nAnd make their echo of his truth a lie.\n\nHis forest home no hermit's cell he found,\nGuests, motley-minded, drew his hearth around,\nAnd held armed truce upon its neutral ground.\n\nThere Indian chiefs with battle-bows unstrung,\nStrong, hero-limbed, like those whom Homer sung,\nPastorius fancied, when the world was young,\n\nCame with their tawny women, lithe and tall,\nLike bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's hall,\nComely, if black, and not unpleasing all.\n\nThere hungry folk in homespun drab and gray\nDrew round his board on Monthly Meeting day,\nGenial, half merry in their friendly way.\n\nOr, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland,\nWeak, timid, homesick, slow to understand\nThe New World's promise, sought his helping hand.\n\nOr painful Kelpius [13] from his hermit den\nBy Wissahickon, maddest of good men,\nDreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen.\n\nDeep in the woods, where the small river slid\nSnake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid,\nWeird as a wizard, over arts forbid,\n\nReading the books of Daniel and of John,\nAnd Behmen's Morning-Redness, through the Stone\nOf Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone,\n\nWhereby he read what man ne'er read before,\nAnd saw the visions man shall see no more,\nTill the great angel, striding sea and shore,\n\nShall bid all flesh await, on land or ships,\nThe warning trump of the Apocalypse,\nShattering the heavens before the dread eclipse.\n\nOr meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin\nLeaned o'er the gate; or Ranter, pure within,\nAired his perfection in a world of sin.\n\nOr, talking of old home scenes, Op der Graaf\nTeased the low back-log with his shodden staff,\nTill the red embers broke into a laugh\n\nAnd dance of flame, as if they fain would cheer\nThe rugged face, half tender, half austere,\nTouched with the pathos of a homesick tear!\n\nOr Sluyter, [14] saintly familist, whose word\nAs law the Brethren of the Manor heard,\nAnnounced the speedy terrors of the Lord,\n\nAnd turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race,\nAbove a wrecked world with complacent face\nRiding secure upon his plank of grace!\n\nHaply, from Finland's birchen groves exiled,\nManly in thought, in simple ways a child,\nHis white hair floating round his visage mild,\n\nThe Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door,\nPleased from his neighbor's lips to hear once more\nHis long-disused and half-forgotten lore.\n\nFor both could baffle Babel's lingual curse,\nAnd speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse\nCleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse.\n\nAnd oft Pastorius and the meek old man\nArgued as Quaker and as Lutheran,\nEnding in Christian love, as they began.\n\nWith lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed\nWhere Sommerhausen over vales of shade\nLooked miles away, by every flower delayed,\n\nOr song of bird, happy and free with one\nWho loved, like him, to let his memory run\nOver old fields of learning, and to sun\n\nHimself in Plato's wise philosophies,\nAnd dream with Philo over mysteries\nWhereof the dreamer never finds the keys;\n\nTo touch all themes of thought, nor weakly stop\nFor doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop\nDeep down and bring the hidden waters up [15]\n\nFor there was freedom in that wakening time\nOf tender souls; to differ was not crime;\nThe varying bells made up the perfect chime.\n\nOn lips unlike was laid the altar's coal,\nThe white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole\nThrough the stained oriel of each human soul.\n\nGathered from many sects, the Quaker brought\nHis old beliefs, adjusting to the thought\nThat moved his soul the creed his fathers taught.\n\nOne faith alone, so broad that all mankind\nWithin themselves its secret witness find,\nThe soul's communion with the Eternal Mind,\n\nThe Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Guide,\nScholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied,\nThe polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside.\n\nAs still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, [16] face\nBy face in Flemish detail, we may trace\nHow loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace\n\nSat in close contrast,--the clipt-headed churl,\nBroad market-dame, and simple serving-girl\nBy skirt of silk and periwig in curl\n\nFor soul touched soul; the spiritual treasure-trove\nMade all men equal, none could rise above\nNor sink below that level of God's love.\n\nSo, with his rustic neighbors sitting down,\nThe homespun frock beside the scholar's gown,\nPastorius to the manners of the town\n\nAdded the freedom of the woods, and sought\nThe bookless wisdom by experience taught,\nAnd learned to love his new-found home, while not\n\nForgetful of the old; the seasons went\nTheir rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent\nOf their own calm and measureless content.\n\nGlad even to tears, he heard the robin sing\nHis song of welcome to the Western spring,\nAnd bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing.\n\nAnd when the miracle of autumn came,\nAnd all the woods with many-colored flame\nOf splendor, making summer's greenness tame,\n\nBurned, unconsumed, a voice without a sound\nSpake to him from each kindled bush around,\nAnd made the strange, new landscape holy ground\n\nAnd when the bitter north-wind, keen and swift,\nSwept the white street and piled the dooryard drift,\nHe exercised, as Friends might say, his gift\n\nOf verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the hash\nOf corn and beans in Indian succotash;\nDull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash\n\nOf wit and fine conceit,--the good man's play\nOf quiet fancies, meet to while away\nThe slow hours measuring off an idle day.\n\nAt evening, while his wife put on her look\nOf love's endurance, from its niche he took\nThe written pages of his ponderous book.\n\nAnd read, in half the languages of man,\nHis \"Rusca Apium,\" which with bees began,\nAnd through the gamut of creation ran.\n\nOr, now and then, the missive of some friend\nIn gray Altorf or storied Nurnberg penned\nDropped in upon him like a guest to spend\n\nThe night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical\nThe fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall\nAnd voices sound in dreams, and yet withal\n\nHuman and sweet, as if each far, low tone,\nOver the roses of her gardens blown\nBrought the warm sense of beauty all her own.\n\nWise Spener questioned what his friend could trace\nOf spiritual influx or of saving grace\nIn the wild natures of the Indian race.\n\nAnd learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look\nFrom Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch,\nSought out his pupil in his far-off nook,\n\nTo query with him of climatic change,\nOf bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range,\nOf flowers and fruits and simples new and strange.\n\nAnd thus the Old and New World reached their hands\nAcross the water, and the friendly lands\nTalked with each other from their severed strands.\n\nPastorius answered all: while seed and root\nSent from his new home grew to flower and fruit\nAlong the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot;\n\nAnd, in return, the flowers his boyhood knew\nSmiled at his door, the same in form and hue,\nAnd on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew.\n\nNo idler he; whoever else might shirk,\nHe set his hand to every honest work,--\nFarmer and teacher, court and meeting clerk.\n\nStill on the town seal his device is found,\nGrapes, flax, and thread-spool on a trefoil ground,\nWith \"Vinum, Linum et Textrinum\" wound.\n\nOne house sufficed for gospel and for law,\nWhere Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and saw,\nAssured the good, and held the rest in awe.\n\nWhatever legal maze he wandered through,\nHe kept the Sermon on the Mount in view,\nAnd justice always into mercy grew.\n\nNo whipping-post he needed, stocks, nor jail,\nNor ducking-stool; the orchard-thief grew pale\nAt his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail,\n\nThe usurer's grasp released the forfeit land;\nThe slanderer faltered at the witness-stand,\nAnd all men took his counsel for command.\n\nWas it caressing air, the brooding love\nOf tenderer skies than German land knew of,\nGreen calm below, blue quietness above,\n\nStill flow of water, deep repose of wood\nThat, with a sense of loving Fatherhood\nAnd childlike trust in the Eternal Good,\n\nSoftened all hearts, and dulled the edge of hate,\nHushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to wait\nThe slow assurance of the better state?\n\nWho knows what goadings in their sterner way\nO'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray,\nBlew round the men of Massachusetts Bay?\n\nWhat hate of heresy the east-wind woke?\nWhat hints of pitiless power and terror spoke\nIn waves that on their iron coast-line broke?\n\nBe it as it may: within the Land of Penn\nThe sectary yielded to the citizen,\nAnd peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men.\n\nPeace brooded over all. No trumpet stung\nThe air to madness, and no steeple flung\nAlarums down from bells at midnight rung.\n\nThe land slept well. The Indian from his face\nWashed all his war-paint off, and in the place\nOf battle-marches sped the peaceful chase,\n\nOr wrought for wages at the white man's side,--\nGiving to kindness what his native pride\nAnd lazy freedom to all else denied.\n\nAnd well the curious scholar loved the old\nTraditions that his swarthy neighbors told\nBy wigwam-fires when nights were growing cold,\n\nDiscerned the fact round which their fancy drew\nIts dreams, and held their childish faith more true\nTo God and man than half the creeds he knew.\n\nThe desert blossomed round him; wheat-fields rolled\nBeneath the warm wind waves of green and gold;\nThe planted ear returned its hundred-fold.\n\nGreat clusters ripened in a warmer sun\nThan that which by the Rhine stream shines upon\nThe purpling hillsides with low vines o'errun.\n\nAbout each rustic porch the humming-bird\nTried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred,\nThe Old World flowers to virgin soil transferred;\n\nAnd the first-fruits of pear and apple, bending\nThe young boughs down, their gold and russet blending,\nMade glad his heart, familiar odors lending\n\nTo the fresh fragrance of the birch and pine,\nLife-everlasting, bay, and eglantine,\nAnd all the subtle scents the woods combine.\n\nFair First-Day mornings, steeped in summer calm,\nWarm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm,\nCame to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm\n\nTo the tired grinder at the noisy wheel\nOf labor, winding off from memory's reel\nA golden thread of music. With no peal\n\nOf bells to call them to the house of praise,\nThe scattered settlers through green forest-ways\nWalked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze\n\nThe Indian trapper saw them, from the dim\nShade of the alders on the rivulet's rim,\nSeek the Great Spirit's house to talk with Him.\n\nThere, through the gathered stillness multiplied\nAnd made intense by sympathy, outside\nThe sparrows sang, and the gold-robin cried,\n\nA-swing upon his elm. A faint perfume\nBreathed through the open windows of the room\nFrom locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom.\n\nThither, perchance, sore-tried confessors came,\nWhose fervor jail nor pillory could tame,\nProud of the cropped ears meant to be their shame,\n\nMen who had eaten slavery's bitter bread\nIn Indian isles; pale women who had bled\nUnder the hangman's lash, and bravely said\n\nGod's message through their prison's iron bars;\nAnd gray old soldier-converts, seamed with scars\nFrom every stricken field of England's wars.\n\nLowly before the Unseen Presence knelt\nEach waiting heart, till haply some one felt\nOn his moved lips the seal of silence melt.\n\nOr, without spoken words, low breathings stole\nOf a diviner life from soul to soul,\nBaptizing in one tender thought the whole.\n\nWhen shaken hands announced the meeting o'er,\nThe friendly group still lingered at the door,\nGreeting, inquiring, sharing all the store\n\nOf weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and maid\nDown the green vistas of the woodland strayed,\nWhispered and smiled and oft their feet delayed.\n\nDid the boy's whistle answer back the thrushes?\nDid light girl laughter ripple through the bushes,\nAs brooks make merry over roots and rushes?\n\nUnvexed the sweet air seemed. Without a wound\nThe ear of silence heard, and every sound\nIts place in nature's fine accordance found.\n\nAnd solemn meeting, summer sky and wood,\nOld kindly faces, youth and maidenhood\nSeemed, like God's new creation, very good!\n\nAnd, greeting all with quiet smile and word,\nPastorius went his way. The unscared bird\nSang at his side; scarcely the squirrel stirred\n\nAt his hushed footstep on the mossy sod;\nAnd, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod,\nHe felt the peace of nature and of God.\n\nHis social life wore no ascetic form,\nHe loved all beauty, without fear of harm,\nAnd in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm.\n\nStrict to himself, of other men no spy,\nHe made his own no circuit-judge to try\nThe freer conscience of his neighbors by.\n\nWith love rebuking, by his life alone,\nGracious and sweet, the better way was shown,\nThe joy of one, who, seeking not his own,\n\nAnd faithful to all scruples, finds at last\nThe thorns and shards of duty overpast,\nAnd daily life, beyond his hope's forecast,\n\nPleasant and beautiful with sight and sound,\nAnd flowers upspringing in its narrow round,\nAnd all his days with quiet gladness crowned.\n\nHe sang not; but, if sometimes tempted strong,\nHe hummed what seemed like Altorf's Burschen-song;\nHis good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong.\n\nFor well he loved his boyhood's brother band;\nHis Memory, while he trod the New World's strand,\nA double-ganger walked the Fatherland\n\nIf, when on frosty Christmas eves the light\nShone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight\nOf Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white;\n\nAnd closed his eyes, and listened to the sweet\nOld wait-songs sounding down his native street,\nAnd watched again the dancers' mingling feet;\n\nYet not the less, when once the vision passed,\nHe held the plain and sober maxims fast\nOf the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast.\n\nStill all attuned to nature's melodies,\nHe loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees,\nAnd the low hum of home-returning bees;\n\nThe blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom\nDown the long street, the beauty and perfume\nOf apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom\n\nOf Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through\nWith sun--threads; and the music the wind drew,\nMournful and sweet, from leaves it overblew.\n\nAnd evermore, beneath this outward sense,\nAnd through the common sequence of events,\nHe felt the guiding hand of Providence\n\nReach out of space. A Voice spake in his ear,\nAnd to all other voices far and near\nDied at that whisper, full of meanings clear.\n\nThe Light of Life shone round him; one by one\nThe wandering lights, that all-misleading run,\nWent out like candles paling in the sun.\n\nThat Light he followed, step by step, where'er\nIt led, as in the vision of the seer\nThe wheels moved as the spirit in the clear\n\nAnd terrible crystal moved, with all their eyes\nWatching the living splendor sink or rise,\nIts will their will, knowing no otherwise.\n\nWithin himself he found the law of right,\nHe walked by faith and not the letter's sight,\nAnd read his Bible by the Inward Light.\n\nAnd if sometimes the slaves of form and rule,\nFrozen in their creeds like fish in winter's pool,\nTried the large tolerance of his liberal school,\n\nHis door was free to men of every name,\nHe welcomed all the seeking souls who came,\nAnd no man's faith he made a cause of blame.\n\nBut best he loved in leisure hours to see\nHis own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee,\nIn social converse, genial, frank, and free.\n\nThere sometimes silence (it were hard to tell\nWho owned it first) upon the circle fell,\nHushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell\n\nOn the black boy who grimaced by the hearth,\nTo solemnize his shining face of mirth;\nOnly the old clock ticked amidst the dearth\n\nOf sound; nor eye was raised nor hand was stirred\nIn that soul-sabbath, till at last some word\nOf tender counsel or low prayer was heard.\n\nThen guests, who lingered but farewell to say\nAnd take love's message, went their homeward way;\nSo passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day.\n\nHis was the Christian's unsung Age of Gold,\nA truer idyl than the bards have told\nOf Arno's banks or Arcady of old.\n\nWhere still the Friends their place of burial keep,\nAnd century-rooted mosses o'er it creep,\nThe Nurnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep.\n\nAnd Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last\nIn Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast\nA glance upon it as he meekly passed?\n\nAnd did a secret sympathy possess\nThat tender soul, and for the slave's redress\nLend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to\nguess.\n\nNay, were the plant itself but mythical,\nSet in the fresco of tradition's wall\nLike Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all.\n\nEnough to know that, through the winter's frost\nAnd summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost,\nAnd every duty pays at last its cost.\n\nFor, ere Pastorius left the sun and air,\nGod sent the answer to his life-long prayer;\nThe child was born beside the Delaware,\n\nWho, in the power a holy purpose lends,\nGuided his people unto nobler ends,\nAnd left them worthier of the name of Friends.\n\nAnd to! the fulness of the time has come,\nAnd over all the exile's Western home,\nFrom sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom!\n\nAnd joy-bells ring, and silver trumpets blow;\nBut not for thee, Pastorius! Even so\nThe world forgets, but the wise angels know.\n\n\n\n\nKING VOLMER AND ELSIE.\nAFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER.\n\nWHERE, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones\nof the Horg,\nIn its little Christian city stands the church of\nVordingborg,\nIn merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his\npower,\nAs idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his\ntower.\n\nOut spake the King to Henrik, his young and faithful\nsquire\n\"Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy\ndesire?\"\n\"Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me\nAs true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee.\"\n\nLoud laughed the king: \"To-morrow shall bring\nanother day, [18]\nWhen I myself will test her; she will not say me\nnay.\"\nThereat the lords and gallants, that round about\nhim stood,\nWagged all their heads in concert and smiled as\ncourtiers should.\n\nThe gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the\nancient town\nFrom the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose\nlooks down;\nThe yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of\nmorn,\nThe wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare\nof hunter's horn.\n\nIn the garden of her father little Elsie sits and\nspins,\nAnd, singing with the early birds, her daily task,\nbegins.\nGay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her\ngarden-bower,\nBut she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than\nthe flower.\n\nAbout her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and,\nwhite\nAs snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small,\nround wrists in sight;\nBelow, the modest petticoat can only half conceal\nThe motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a\nwheel.\n\nThe cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in\nsunshine warm;\nBut, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades\nit with her arm.\nAnd, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of\ndog and horn,\nCome leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling\ndown the corn!\n\nMerrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume\nstreamed gay,\nAs fast beside her father's gate the riders held\ntheir way;\nAnd one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden\nspur on heel,\nAnd, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden\nchecked her wheel.\n\n\"All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me!\nFor weary months in secret my heart has longed for\nthee!\"\nWhat noble knight was this? What words for\nmodest maiden's ear?\nShe dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and\nfear.\n\nShe lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would\nseek the door,\nTrembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes\ncrimsoned o'er.\n\"Nay, fear me not,\" the rider said, \"I offer heart\nand hand,\nBear witness these good Danish knights who round\nabout me stand.\n\n\"I grant you time to think of this, to answer as\nyou may,\nFor to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day.\"\nHe spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round\nhis train,\nHe saw his merry followers seek to hide their\nsmiles in vain.\n\n\"The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of\ngolden hair,\nI'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you\nwear;\nAll precious gems shall twine your neck; and in\na chariot gay\nYou shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds\nof gray.\n\n\"And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and\nbrazen lamps shall glow;\nOn marble floors your feet shall weave the dances\nto and fro.\nAt frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall\nshine,\nWhile, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink\nthe blood-red wine.\"\n\nThen Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face\nto face;\nA roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip\nfound place.\nBack from her low white forehead the curls of\ngold she threw,\nAnd lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and\nblue.\n\n\"I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight;\nI will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn\nto slight.\nIf you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not\na lord;\nI bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty\nsword.\"\n\n\"To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel\naway,\nAnd in its place will swing the scythe and mow\nyour father's hay.\"\n\"Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can\nnever bear;\nA Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you\nmust wear.\"\n\n\"Well, Vadmal will I wear for you,\" the rider\ngayly spoke,\n\"And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet\ncloak.\"\n\"But mark,\" she said, \"no stately horse my peasant\nlove must ride,\nA yoke of steers before the plough is all that he\nmust guide.\"\n\nThe knight looked down upon his steed: \"Well,\nlet him wander free\nNo other man must ride the horse that has been\nbacked by me.\nHenceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen\ntalk,\nIf only little Elsie beside my plough will walk.\"\n\n\"You must take from out your cellar cask of wine\nand flask and can;\nThe homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant.\nman.\"\n\"Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead\nof thine,\nAnd leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain\nmy generous wine.\"\n\n\"Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign\nand boss,\nUnmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly\nknee across.\nAnd pull me down your castle from top to basement\nwall,\nAnd let your plough trace furrows in the ruins of\nyour hall!\"\n\nThen smiled he with a lofty pride; right well at\nlast he knew\nThe maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth.\nplight true.\n\"Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full\nwell\nYou know that I must bear my shield and in my\ncastle dwell!\n\n\"The lions ramping on that shield between the\nhearts aflame\nKeep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her\nancient name.\n\n\"For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder\ntowers,\nWho ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, this\ngoodly home of ours'.\n\n\"I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know\nis true;\nWould God that all our maidens were good and\npure as you!\nWell have you pleased your monarch, and he shall\nwell repay;\nGod's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring\nanother day!\"\n\nHe lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good\nsteed then,\nAnd like a whirl-blast swept away with all his\ngallant men.\nThe steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on\nwinds of morn\nThe wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare\nof hunter's horn.\n\n\"Thou true and ever faithful!\" the listening\nHenrik cried;\nAnd, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by\nElsie's side.\nNone saw the fond embracing, save, shining from\nafar,\nThe Golden Goose that watched them from the\ntower of Valdemar.\n\nO darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers\nthat throng\nHer vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my\nsong.\nNo praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's\nskill;\nThank God! of maids like Elsie the land has\nplenty still!\n1872.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREE BELLS.\n\nBENEATH the low-hung night cloud\nThat raked her splintering mast\nThe good ship settled slowly,\nThe cruel leak gained fast.\n\nOver the awful ocean\nHer signal guns pealed out.\nDear God! was that Thy answer\nFrom the horror round about?\n\nA voice came down the wild wind,\n\"Ho! ship ahoy!\" its cry\n\"Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow\nShall lay till daylight by!\"\n\nHour after hour crept slowly,\nYet on the heaving swells\nTossed up and down the ship-lights,\nThe lights of the Three Bells!\n\nAnd ship to ship made signals,\nMan answered back to man,\nWhile oft, to cheer and hearten,\nThe Three Bells nearer ran;\n\nAnd the captain from her taffrail\nSent down his hopeful cry\n\"Take heart! Hold on!\" he shouted;\n\"The Three Bells shall lay by!\"\n\nAll night across the waters\nThe tossing lights shone clear;\nAll night from reeling taffrail\nThe Three Bells sent her cheer.\n\nAnd when the dreary watches\nOf storm and darkness passed,\nJust as the wreck lurched under,\nAll souls were saved at last.\n\nSail on, Three Bells, forever,\nIn grateful memory sail!\nRing on, Three Bells of rescue,\nAbove the wave and gale!\n\nType of the Love eternal,\nRepeat the Master's cry,\nAs tossing through our darkness\nThe lights of God draw nigh!\n1872.\n\n\n\n\nJOHN UNDERHILL.\n\nA SCORE of years had come and gone\nSince the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone,\nWhen Captain Underhill, bearing scars\nFrom Indian ambush and Flemish wars,\nLeft three-hilled Boston and wandered down,\nEast by north, to Cocheco town.\n\nWith Vane the younger, in counsel sweet,\nHe had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet,\nAnd, when the bolt of banishment fell\nOn the head of his saintly oracle,\nHe had shared her ill as her good report,\nAnd braved the wrath of the General Court.\n\nHe shook from his feet as he rode away\nThe dust of the Massachusetts Bay.\nThe world might bless and the world might ban,\nWhat did it matter the perfect man,\nTo whom the freedom of earth was given,\nProof against sin, and sure of heaven?\n\nHe cheered his heart as he rode along\nWith screed of Scripture and holy song,\nOr thought how he rode with his lances free\nBy the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee,\nTill his wood-path grew to a trodden road,\nAnd Hilton Point in the distance showed.\n\nHe saw the church with the block-house nigh,\nThe two fair rivers, the flakes thereby,\nAnd, tacking to windward, low and crank,\nThe little shallop from Strawberry Bank;\nAnd he rose in his stirrups and looked abroad\nOver land and water, and praised the Lord.\n\nGoodly and stately and grave to see,\nInto the clearing's space rode he,\nWith the sun on the hilt of his sword in sheath,\nAnd his silver buckles and spurs beneath,\nAnd the settlers welcomed him, one and all,\nFrom swift Quampeagan to Gonic Fall.\n\nAnd he said to the elders: \"Lo, I come\nAs the way seemed open to seek a home.\nSomewhat the Lord hath wrought by my hands\nIn the Narragansett and Netherlands,\nAnd if here ye have work for a Christian man,\nI will tarry, and serve ye as best I can.\n\n\"I boast not of gifts, but fain would own\nThe wonderful favor God hath shown,\nThe special mercy vouchsafed one day\nOn the shore of Narragansett Bay,\nAs I sat, with my pipe, from the camp aside,\nAnd mused like Isaac at eventide.\n\n\"A sudden sweetness of peace I found,\nA garment of gladness wrapped me round;\nI felt from the law of works released,\nThe strife of the flesh and spirit ceased,\nMy faith to a full assurance grew,\nAnd all I had hoped for myself I knew.\n\n\"Now, as God appointeth, I keep my way,\nI shall not stumble, I shall not stray;\nHe hath taken away my fig-leaf dress,\nI wear the robe of His righteousness;\nAnd the shafts of Satan no more avail\nThan Pequot arrows on Christian mail.\"\n\n\"Tarry with us,\" the settlers cried,\n\"Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide.\"\nAnd Captain Underhill bowed his head.\n\"The will of the Lord be done!\" he said.\nAnd the morrow beheld him sitting down\nIn the ruler's seat in Cocheco town.\n\nAnd he judged therein as a just man should;\nHis words were wise and his rule was good;\nHe coveted not his neighbor's land,\nFrom the holding of bribes he shook his hand;\nAnd through the camps of the heathen ran\nA wholesome fear of the valiant man.\n\nBut the heart is deceitful, the good Book saith,\nAnd life hath ever a savor of death.\nThrough hymns of triumph the tempter calls,\nAnd whoso thinketh he standeth falls.\nAlas! ere their round the seasons ran,\nThere was grief in the soul of the saintly man.\n\nThe tempter's arrows that rarely fail\nHad found the joints of his spiritual mail;\nAnd men took note of his gloomy air,\nThe shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer,\nThe signs of a battle lost within,\nThe pain of a soul in the coils of sin.\n\nThen a whisper of scandal linked his name\nWith broken vows and a life of blame;\nAnd the people looked askance on him\nAs he walked among them sullen and grim,\nIll at ease, and bitter of word,\nAnd prompt of quarrel with hand or sword.\n\nNone knew how, with prayer and fasting still,\nHe strove in the bonds of his evil will;\nBut he shook himself like Samson at length,\nAnd girded anew his loins of strength,\nAnd bade the crier go up and down\nAnd call together the wondering town.\n\nJeer and murmur and shaking of head\nCeased as he rose in his place and said\n\"Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know\nHow I came among you a year ago,\nStrong in the faith that my soul was freed\nFrom sin of feeling, or thought, or deed.\n\n\"I have sinned, I own it with grief and shame,\nBut not with a lie on my lips I came.\nIn my blindness I verily thought my heart\nSwept and garnished in every part.\nHe chargeth His angels with folly; He sees\nThe heavens unclean. Was I more than these?\n\n\"I urge no plea. At your feet I lay\nThe trust you gave me, and go my way.\nHate me or pity me, as you will,\nThe Lord will have mercy on sinners still;\nAnd I, who am chiefest, say to all,\nWatch and pray, lest ye also fall.\"\n\nNo voice made answer: a sob so low\nThat only his quickened ear could know\nSmote his heart with a bitter pain,\nAs into the forest he rode again,\nAnd the veil of its oaken leaves shut down\nOn his latest glimpse of Cocheco town.\n\nCrystal-clear on the man of sin\nThe streams flashed up, and the sky shone in;\nOn his cheek of fever the cool wind blew,\nThe leaves dropped on him their tears of dew,\nAnd angels of God, in the pure, sweet guise\nOf flowers, looked on him with sad surprise.\n\nWas his ear at fault that brook and breeze\nSang in their saddest of minor keys?\nWhat was it the mournful wood-thrush said?\nWhat whispered the pine-trees overhead?\nDid he hear the Voice on his lonely way\nThat Adam heard in the cool of day?\n\nInto the desert alone rode he,\nAlone with the Infinite Purity;\nAnd, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke,\nAs Peter did to the Master's look,\nHe measured his path with prayers of pain\nFor peace with God and nature again.\n\nAnd in after years to Cocheco came\nThe bruit of a once familiar name;\nHow among the Dutch of New Netherlands,\nFrom wild Danskamer to Haarlem sands,\nA penitent soldier preached the Word,\nAnd smote the heathen with Gideon's sword!\n\nAnd the heart of Boston was glad to hear\nHow he harried the foe on the long frontier,\nAnd heaped on the land against him barred\nThe coals of his generous watch and ward.\nFrailest and bravest! the Bay State still\nCounts with her worthies John Underhill.\n1873.\n\n\n\n\nCONDUCTOR BRADLEY.\n\nA railway conductor who lost his life in an accident on a Connecticut\nrailway, May 9, 1873.\n\n\nCONDUCTOR BRADLEY, (always may his name\nBe said with reverence!) as the swift doom came,\nSmitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame,\n\nSank, with the brake he grasped just where he stood\nTo do the utmost that a brave man could,\nAnd die, if needful, as a true man should.\n\nMen stooped above him; women dropped their tears\nOn that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears,\nLost in the strength and glory of his years.\n\nWhat heard they? Lo! the ghastly lips of pain,\nDead to all thought save duty's, moved again\n\"Put out the signals for the other train!\"\n\nNo nobler utterance since the world began\nFrom lips of saint or martyr ever ran,\nElectric, through the sympathies of man.\n\nAh me! how poor and noteless seem to this\nThe sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness,\nOur sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss!\n\nOh, grand, supreme endeavor! Not in vain\nThat last brave act of failing tongue and brain\nFreighted with life the downward rushing train,\n\nFollowing the wrecked one, as wave follows wave,\nObeyed the warning which the dead lips gave.\nOthers he saved, himself he could not save.\n\nNay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead\nWho in his record still the earth shall tread\nWith God's clear aureole shining round his head.\n\nWe bow as in the dust, with all our pride\nOf virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside.\nGod give us grace to live as Bradley died!\n1873.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WITCH OF WENHAM.\n\nThe house is still standing in Danvers, Mass., where, it is said, a\nsuspected witch was confined overnight in the attic, which was bolted\nfast. In the morning when the constable came to take her to Salem for\ntrial she was missing, although the door was still bolted. Her escape\nwas doubtless aided by her friends, but at the time it was attributed\nto Satanic interference.\n\n\nI.\n\nALONG Crane River's sunny slopes\nBlew warm the winds of May,\nAnd over Naumkeag's ancient oaks\nThe green outgrew the gray.\n\nThe grass was green on Rial-side,\nThe early birds at will\nWaked up the violet in its dell,\nThe wind-flower on its hill.\n\n\"Where go you, in your Sunday coat,\nSon Andrew, tell me, pray.\"\nFor striped perch in Wenham Lake\nI go to fish to-day.\"\n\n\"Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake\nThe mottled perch shall be\nA blue-eyed witch sits on the bank\nAnd weaves her net for thee.\n\n\"She weaves her golden hair; she sings\nHer spell-song low and faint;\nThe wickedest witch in Salem jail\nIs to that girl a saint.\"\n\n\"Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue;\nGod knows,\" the young man cried,\n\"He never made a whiter soul\nThan hers by Wenham side.\n\n\"She tends her mother sick and blind,\nAnd every want supplies;\nTo her above the blessed Book\nShe lends her soft blue eyes.\n\n\"Her voice is glad with holy songs,\nHer lips are sweet with prayer;\nGo where you will, in ten miles round\nIs none more good and fair.\"\n\n\"Son Andrew, for the love of God\nAnd of thy mother, stay!\"\nShe clasped her hands, she wept aloud,\nBut Andrew rode away.\n\n\"O reverend sir, my Andrew's soul\nThe Wenham witch has caught;\nShe holds him with the curled gold\nWhereof her snare is wrought.\n\n\"She charms him with her great blue eyes,\nShe binds him with her hair;\nOh, break the spell with holy words,\nUnbind him with a prayer!\"\n\n\"Take heart,\" the painful preacher said,\n\"This mischief shall not be;\nThe witch shall perish in her sins\nAnd Andrew shall go free.\n\n\"Our poor Ann Putnam testifies\nShe saw her weave a spell,\nBare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon,\nAround a dried-up well.\n\n\"'Spring up, O well!' she softly sang\nThe Hebrew's old refrain\n(For Satan uses Bible words),\nTill water flowed a-main.\n\n\"And many a goodwife heard her speak\nBy Wenham water words\nThat made the buttercups take wings\nAnd turn to yellow birds.\n\n\"They say that swarming wild bees seek\nThe hive at her command;\nAnd fishes swim to take their food\nFrom out her dainty hand.\n\n\"Meek as she sits in meeting-time,\nThe godly minister\nNotes well the spell that doth compel\nThe young men's eyes to her.\n\n\"The mole upon her dimpled chin\nIs Satan's seal and sign;\nHer lips are red with evil bread\nAnd stain of unblest wine.\n\n\"For Tituba, my Indian, saith\nAt Quasycung she took\nThe Black Man's godless sacrament\nAnd signed his dreadful book.\n\n\"Last night my sore-afflicted child\nAgainst the young witch cried.\nTo take her Marshal Herrick rides\nEven now to Wenham side.\"\n\nThe marshal in his saddle sat,\nHis daughter at his knee;\n\"I go to fetch that arrant witch,\nThy fair playmate,\" quoth he.\n\n\"Her spectre walks the parsonage,\nAnd haunts both hall and stair;\nThey know her by the great blue eyes\nAnd floating gold of hair.\"\n\n\"They lie, they lie, my father dear!\nNo foul old witch is she,\nBut sweet and good and crystal-pure\nAs Wenham waters be.\"\n\n\"I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set\nBefore us good and ill,\nAnd woe to all whose carnal loves\nOppose His righteous will.\n\n\"Between Him and the powers of hell\nChoose thou, my child, to-day\nNo sparing hand, no pitying eye,\nWhen God commands to slay!\"\n\nHe went his way; the old wives shook\nWith fear as he drew nigh;\nThe children in the dooryards held\nTheir breath as he passed by.\n\nToo well they knew the gaunt gray horse\nThe grim witch-hunter rode\nThe pale Apocalyptic beast\nBy grisly Death bestrode.\n\n\n\nII.\n\nOh, fair the face of Wenham Lake\nUpon the young girl's shone,\nHer tender mouth, her dreaming eyes,\nHer yellow hair outblown.\n\nBy happy youth and love attuned\nTo natural harmonies,\nThe singing birds, the whispering wind,\nShe sat beneath the trees.\n\nSat shaping for her bridal dress\nHer mother's wedding gown,\nWhen lo! the marshal, writ in hand,\nFrom Alford hill rode down.\n\nHis face was hard with cruel fear,\nHe grasped the maiden's hands\n\"Come with me unto Salem town,\nFor so the law commands!\"\n\n\"Oh, let me to my mother say\nFarewell before I go!\"\nHe closer tied her little hands\nUnto his saddle bow.\n\n\"Unhand me,\" cried she piteously,\n\"For thy sweet daughter's sake.\"\n\"I'll keep my daughter safe,\" he said,\n\"From the witch of Wenham Lake.\"\n\n\"Oh, leave me for my mother's sake,\nShe needs my eyes to see.\"\n\"Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck\nFrom off the gallows-tree.\"\n\nHe bore her to a farm-house old,\nAnd up its stairway long,\nAnd closed on her the garret-door\nWith iron bolted strong.\n\nThe day died out, the night came down\nHer evening prayer she said,\nWhile, through the dark, strange faces seemed\nTo mock her as she prayed.\n\nThe present horror deepened all\nThe fears her childhood knew;\nThe awe wherewith the air was filled\nWith every breath she drew.\n\nAnd could it be, she trembling asked,\nSome secret thought or sin\nHad shut good angels from her heart\nAnd let the bad ones in?\n\nHad she in some forgotten dream\nLet go her hold on Heaven,\nAnd sold herself unwittingly\nTo spirits unforgiven?\n\nOh, weird and still the dark hours passed;\nNo human sound she heard,\nBut up and down the chimney stack\nThe swallows moaned and stirred.\n\nAnd o'er her, with a dread surmise\nOf evil sight and sound,\nThe blind bats on their leathern wings\nWent wheeling round and round.\n\nLow hanging in the midnight sky\nLooked in a half-faced moon.\nWas it a dream, or did she hear\nHer lover's whistled tune?\n\nShe forced the oaken scuttle back;\nA whisper reached her ear\n\"Slide down the roof to me,\" it said,\n\"So softly none may hear.\"\n\nShe slid along the sloping roof\nTill from its eaves she hung,\nAnd felt the loosened shingles yield\nTo which her fingers clung.\n\nBelow, her lover stretched his hands\nAnd touched her feet so small;\n\"Drop down to me, dear heart,\" he said,\n\"My arms shall break the fall.\"\n\nHe set her on his pillion soft,\nHer arms about him twined;\nAnd, noiseless as if velvet-shod,\nThey left the house behind.\n\nBut when they reached the open way,\nFull free the rein he cast;\nOh, never through the mirk midnight\nRode man and maid more fast.\n\nAlong the wild wood-paths they sped,\nThe bridgeless streams they swam;\nAt set of moon they passed the Bass,\nAt sunrise Agawam.\n\nAt high noon on the Merrimac\nThe ancient ferryman\nForgot, at times, his idle oars,\nSo fair a freight to scan.\n\nAnd when from off his grounded boat\nHe saw them mount and ride,\n\"God keep her from the evil eye,\nAnd harm of witch!\" he cried.\n\nThe maiden laughed, as youth will laugh\nAt all its fears gone by;\n\"He does not know,\" she whispered low,\n\"A little witch am I.\"\n\nAll day he urged his weary horse,\nAnd, in the red sundown,\nDrew rein before a friendly door\nIn distant Berwick town.\n\nA fellow-feeling for the wronged\nThe Quaker people felt;\nAnd safe beside their kindly hearths\nThe hunted maiden dwelt,\n\nUntil from off its breast the land\nThe haunting horror threw,\nAnd hatred, born of ghastly dreams,\nTo shame and pity grew.\n\nSad were the year's spring morns, and sad\nIts golden summer day,\nBut blithe and glad its withered fields,\nAnd skies of ashen gray;\n\nFor spell and charm had power no more,\nThe spectres ceased to roam,\nAnd scattered households knelt again\nAround the hearths of home.\n\nAnd when once more by Beaver Dam\nThe meadow-lark outsang,\nAnd once again on all the hills\nThe early violets sprang,\n\nAnd all the windy pasture slopes\nLay green within the arms\nOf creeks that bore the salted sea\nTo pleasant inland farms,\n\nThe smith filed off the chains he forged,\nThe jail-bolts backward fell;\nAnd youth and hoary age came forth\nLike souls escaped from hell.\n1877\n\n\n\n\nKING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS\n\nOUT from Jerusalem\nThe king rode with his great\nWar chiefs and lords of state,\nAnd Sheba's queen with them;\n\nComely, but black withal,\nTo whom, perchance, belongs\nThat wondrous Song of songs,\nSensuous and mystical,\n\nWhereto devout souls turn\nIn fond, ecstatic dream,\nAnd through its earth-born theme\nThe Love of loves discern.\n\nProud in the Syrian sun,\nIn gold and purple sheen,\nThe dusky Ethiop queen\nSmiled on King Solomon.\n\nWisest of men, he knew\nThe languages of all\nThe creatures great or small\nThat trod the earth or flew.\n\nAcross an ant-hill led\nThe king's path, and he heard\nIts small folk, and their word\nHe thus interpreted:\n\n\"Here comes the king men greet\nAs wise and good and just,\nTo crush us in the dust\nUnder his heedless feet.\"\n\nThe great king bowed his head,\nAnd saw the wide surprise\nOf the Queen of Sheba's eyes\nAs he told her what they said.\n\n\"O king!\" she whispered sweet,\n\"Too happy fate have they\nWho perish in thy way\nBeneath thy gracious feet!\n\n\"Thou of the God-lent crown,\nShall these vile creatures dare\nMurmur against thee where\nThe knees of kings kneel down?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" Solomon replied,\n\"The wise and strong should seek\nThe welfare of the weak,\"\nAnd turned his horse aside.\n\nHis train, with quick alarm,\nCurved with their leader round\nThe ant-hill's peopled mound,\nAnd left it free from harm.\n\nThe jewelled head bent low;\n\"O king!\" she said, \"henceforth\nThe secret of thy worth\nAnd wisdom well I know.\n\n\"Happy must be the State\nWhose ruler heedeth more\nThe murmurs of the poor\nThan flatteries of the great.\"\n1877.\n\n\n\n\n\nIN THE \"OLD SOUTH.\"\n\nOn the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brewster with four other Friends\nwent into the South Church in time of meeting, \"in sack-cloth, with\nashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face blackened,\" and delivered\n\"a warning from the great God of Heaven and Earth to the Rulers and\nMagistrates of Boston.\" For the offence she was sentenced to be \"whipped\nat a cart's tail up and down the Town, with twenty lashes.\"\n\nSHE came and stood in the Old South Church,\nA wonder and a sign,\nWith a look the old-time sibyls wore,\nHalf-crazed and half-divine.\n\nSave the mournful sackcloth about her wound,\nUnclothed as the primal mother,\nWith limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed\nWith a fire she dare not smother.\n\nLoose on her shoulders fell her hair,\nWith sprinkled ashes gray;\nShe stood in the broad aisle strange and weird\nAs a soul at the judgment day.\n\nAnd the minister paused in his sermon's midst,\nAnd the people held their breath,\nFor these were the words the maiden spoke\nThrough lips as the lips of death:\n\n\"Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet\nAll men my courts shall tread,\nAnd priest and ruler no more shall eat\nMy people up like bread!\n\n\"Repent! repent! ere the Lord shall speak\nIn thunder and breaking seals\nLet all souls worship Him in the way\nHis light within reveals.\"\n\nShe shook the dust from her naked feet,\nAnd her sackcloth closer drew,\nAnd into the porch of the awe-hushed church\nShe passed like a ghost from view.\n\nThey whipped her away at the tail o' the cart\nThrough half the streets of the town,\nBut the words she uttered that day nor fire\nCould burn nor water drown.\n\nAnd now the aisles of the ancient church\nBy equal feet are trod,\nAnd the bell that swings in its belfry rings\nFreedom to worship God!\n\nAnd now whenever a wrong is done\nIt thrills the conscious walls;\nThe stone from the basement cries aloud\nAnd the beam from the timber calls.\n\nThere are steeple-houses on every hand,\nAnd pulpits that bless and ban,\nAnd the Lord will not grudge the single church\nThat is set apart for man.\n\nFor in two commandments are all the law\nAnd the prophets under the sun,\nAnd the first is last and the last is first,\nAnd the twain are verily one.\n\nSo, long as Boston shall Boston be,\nAnd her bay-tides rise and fall,\nShall freedom stand in the Old South Church\nAnd plead for the rights of all!\n1877.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HENCHMAN.\n\nMY lady walks her morning round,\nMy lady's page her fleet greyhound,\nMy lady's hair the fond winds stir,\nAnd all the birds make songs for her.\n\nHer thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers,\nAnd Rathburn side is gay with flowers;\nBut ne'er like hers, in flower or bird,\nWas beauty seen or music heard.\n\nThe distance of the stars is hers;\nThe least of all her worshippers,\nThe dust beneath her dainty heel,\nShe knows not that I see or feel.\n\nOh, proud and calm!--she cannot know\nWhere'er she goes with her I go;\nOh, cold and fair!--she cannot guess\nI kneel to share her hound's caress!\n\nGay knights beside her hunt and hawk,\nI rob their ears of her sweet talk;\nHer suitors come from east and west,\nI steal her smiles from every guest.\n\nUnheard of her, in loving words,\nI greet her with the song of birds;\nI reach her with her green-armed bowers,\nI kiss her with the lips of flowers.\n\nThe hound and I are on her trail,\nThe wind and I uplift her veil;\nAs if the calm, cold moon she were,\nAnd I the tide, I follow her.\n\nAs unrebuked as they, I share\nThe license of the sun and air,\nAnd in a common homage hide\nMy worship from her scorn and pride.\n\nWorld-wide apart, and yet so near,\nI breathe her charmed atmosphere,\nWherein to her my service brings\nThe reverence due to holy things.\n\nHer maiden pride, her haughty name,\nMy dumb devotion shall not shame;\nThe love that no return doth crave\nTo knightly levels lifts the slave,\n\nNo lance have I, in joust or fight,\nTo splinter in my lady's sight\nBut, at her feet, how blest were I\nFor any need of hers to die!\n1877.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK.\n\nE. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, chapter xii., gives an account of\nthe reverence paid the dead by the Kol tribes of Chota Nagpur, Assam.\n\"When a Ho or Munda,\" he says, \"has been burned on the funeral pile,\ncollected morsels of his bones are carried in procession with a solemn,\nghostly, sliding step, keeping time to the deep-sounding drum, and when\nthe old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from\ntime to time, then girls who carry pitchers and brass vessels mournfully\nreverse them to show that they are empty; thus the remains are taken to\nvisit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend or\nrelative for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and praise the\ngoodness of the departed; the bones are carried to all the dead man's\nfavorite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the grove he planted,\nto the threshing-floor where he worked, to the village dance-room where\nhe made merry. At last they are taken to the grave, and buried in an\nearthen vase upon a store of food, covered with one of those huge stone\nslabs which European visitors wonder at in the districts of the\naborigines of India.\" In the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal,\nvol. ix., p. 795, is a Ho dirge.\n\n\nWE have opened the door,\nOnce, twice, thrice!\nWe have swept the floor,\nWe have boiled the rice.\nCome hither, come hither!\nCome from the far lands,\nCome from the star lands,\nCome as before!\nWe lived long together,\nWe loved one another;\nCome back to our life.\nCome father, come mother,\nCome sister and brother,\nChild, husband, and wife,\nFor you we are sighing.\nCome take your old places,\nCome look in our faces,\nThe dead on the dying,\nCome home!\n\nWe have opened the door,\nOnce, twice, thrice!\nWe have kindled the coals,\nAnd we boil the rice\nFor the feast of souls.\nCome hither, come hither!\nThink not we fear you,\nWhose hearts are so near you.\nCome tenderly thought on,\nCome all unforgotten,\nCome from the shadow-lands,\nFrom the dim meadow-lands\nWhere the pale grasses bend\nLow to our sighing.\nCome father, come mother,\nCome sister and brother,\nCome husband and friend,\nThe dead to the dying,\nCome home!\n\nWe have opened the door\nYou entered so oft;\nFor the feast of souls\nWe have kindled the coals,\nAnd we boil the rice soft.\nCome you who are dearest\nTo us who are nearest,\nCome hither, come hither,\nFrom out the wild weather;\nThe storm clouds are flying,\nThe peepul is sighing;\nCome in from the rain.\nCome father, come mother,\nCome sister and brother,\nCome husband and lover,\nBeneath our roof-cover.\nLook on us again,\nThe dead on the dying,\nCome home!\n\nWe have opened the door!\nFor the feast of souls\nWe have kindled the coals\nWe may kindle no more!\nSnake, fever, and famine,\nThe curse of the Brahmin,\nThe sun and the dew,\nThey burn us, they bite us,\nThey waste us and smite us;\nOur days are but few\nIn strange lands far yonder\nTo wonder and wander\nWe hasten to you.\nList then to our sighing,\nWhile yet we are here\nNor seeing nor hearing,\nWe wait without fearing,\nTo feel you draw near.\nO dead, to the dying\nCome home!\n1879.\n\n\n\n\nTHE KHAN'S DEVIL.\nTHE Khan came from Bokhara town\nTo Hamza, santon of renown.\n\n\"My head is sick, my hands are weak;\nThy help, O holy man, I seek.\"\n\nIn silence marking for a space\nThe Khan's red eyes and purple face,\n\nThick voice, and loose, uncertain tread,\n\"Thou hast a devil!\" Hamza said.\n\n\"Allah forbid!\" exclaimed the Khan.\nRid me of him at once, O man!\"\n\n\"Nay,\" Hamza said, \"no spell of mine\nCan slay that cursed thing of thine.\n\n\"Leave feast and wine, go forth and drink\nWater of healing on the brink\n\n\"Where clear and cold from mountain snows,\nThe Nahr el Zeben downward flows.\n\n\"Six moons remain, then come to me;\nMay Allah's pity go with thee!\"\n\nAwestruck, from feast and wine the Khan\nWent forth where Nahr el Zeben ran.\n\nRoots were his food, the desert dust\nHis bed, the water quenched his thirst;\n\nAnd when the sixth moon's scimetar\nCurved sharp above the evening star,\n\nHe sought again the santon's door,\nNot weak and trembling as before,\n\nBut strong of limb and clear of brain;\n\"Behold,\" he said, \"the fiend is slain.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" Hamza answered, \"starved and drowned,\nThe curst one lies in death-like swound.\n\n\"But evil breaks the strongest gyves,\nAnd jins like him have charmed lives.\n\n\"One beaker of the juice of grape\nMay call him up in living shape.\n\n\"When the red wine of Badakshan\nSparkles for thee, beware, O Khan,\n\n\"With water quench the fire within,\nAnd drown each day thy devilkin!\"\n\nThenceforth the great Khan shunned the cup\nAs Shitan's own, though offered up,\n\nWith laughing eyes and jewelled hands,\nBy Yarkand's maids and Samarcand's.\n\nAnd, in the lofty vestibule\nOf the medress of Kaush Kodul,\n\nThe students of the holy law\nA golden-lettered tablet saw,\n\nWith these words, by a cunning hand,\nGraved on it at the Khan's command:\n\n\"In Allah's name, to him who hath\nA devil, Khan el Hamed saith,\n\n\"Wisely our Prophet cursed the vine\nThe fiend that loves the breath of wine,\n\n\"No prayer can slay, no marabout\nNor Meccan dervis can drive out.\n\n\"I, Khan el Hamed, know the charm\nThat robs him of his power to harm.\n\n\"Drown him, O Islam's child! the spell\nTo save thee lies in tank and well!\"\n1879.\n\n\n\n\nTHE KING'S MISSIVE.\n1661.\n\nThis ballad, originally written for The Memorial History of Boston,\ndescribes, with pardonable poetic license, a memorable incident in the\nannals of the city. The interview between Shattuck and the Governor took\nplace, I have since learned, in the residence of the latter, and not\nin the Council Chamber. The publication of the ballad led to some\ndiscussion as to the historical truthfulness of the picture, but I have\nseen no reason to rub out any of the figures or alter the lines and\ncolors.\n\n\nUNDER the great hill sloping bare\nTo cove and meadow and Common lot,\nIn his council chamber and oaken chair,\nSat the worshipful Governor Endicott.\nA grave, strong man, who knew no peer\nIn the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear\nOf God, not man, and for good or ill\nHeld his trust with an iron will.\n\nHe had shorn with his sword the cross from out\nThe flag, and cloven the May-pole down,\nHarried the heathen round about,\nAnd whipped the Quakers from town to town.\nEarnest and honest, a man at need\nTo burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,\nHe kept with the flaming brand of his zeal\nThe gate of the holy common weal.\n\nHis brow was clouded, his eye was stern,\nWith a look of mingled sorrow and wrath;\n\"Woe's me!\" he murmured: \"at every turn\nThe pestilent Quakers are in my path!\nSome we have scourged, and banished some,\nSome hanged, more doomed, and still they come,\nFast as the tide of yon bay sets in,\nSowing their heresy's seed of sin.\n\n\"Did we count on this? Did we leave behind\nThe graves of our kin, the comfort and ease\nOf our English hearths and homes, to find\nTroublers of Israel such as these?\nShall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid!\nI will do as the prophet to Agag did\nThey come to poison the wells of the Word,\nI will hew them in pieces before the Lord!\"\n\nThe door swung open, and Rawson the clerk\nEntered, and whispered under breath,\n\"There waits below for the hangman's work\nA fellow banished on pain of death--\nShattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip,\nBrought over in Master Goldsmith's ship\nAt anchor here in a Christian port,\nWith freight of the devil and all his sort!\"\n\nTwice and thrice on the chamber floor\nStriding fiercely from wall to wall,\n\"The Lord do so to me and more,\"\nThe Governor cried, \"if I hang not all!\nBring hither the Quaker.\" Calm, sedate,\nWith the look of a man at ease with fate,\nInto that presence grim and dread\nCame Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head.\n\n\"Off with the knave's hat!\" An angry hand\nSmote down the offence; but the wearer said,\nWith a quiet smile, \"By the king's command\nI bear his message and stand in his stead.\"\nIn the Governor's hand a missive he laid\nWith the royal arms on its seal displayed,\nAnd the proud man spake as he gazed thereat,\nUncovering, \"Give Mr. Shattuck his hat.\"\n\nHe turned to the Quaker, bowing low,--\n\"The king commandeth your friends' release;\nDoubt not he shall be obeyed, although\nTo his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase.\nWhat he here enjoineth, John Endicott,\nHis loyal servant, questioneth not.\nYou are free! God grant the spirit you own\nMay take you from us to parts unknown.\"\n\nSo the door of the jail was open cast,\nAnd, like Daniel, out of the lion's den\nTender youth and girlhood passed,\nWith age-bowed women and gray-locked men.\nAnd the voice of one appointed to die\nWas lifted in praise and thanks on high,\nAnd the little maid from New Netherlands\nKissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands.\n\nAnd one, whose call was to minister\nTo the souls in prison, beside him went,\nAn ancient woman, bearing with her\nThe linen shroud for his burial meant.\nFor she, not counting her own life dear,\nIn the strength of a love that cast out fear,\nHad watched and served where her brethren died,\nLike those who waited the cross beside.\n\nOne moment they paused on their way to look\nOn the martyr graves by the Common side,\nAnd much scourged Wharton of Salem took\nHis burden of prophecy up and cried\n\"Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain\nHave ye borne the Master's cross of pain;\nYe have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned,\nWith a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!\"\n\nThe autumn haze lay soft and still\nOn wood and meadow and upland farms;\nOn the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill\nSlowly and lazily swung its arms;\nBroad in the sunshine stretched away,\nWith its capes and islands, the turquoise bay;\nAnd over water and dusk of pines\nBlue hills lifted their faint outlines.\n\nThe topaz leaves of the walnut glowed,\nThe sumach added its crimson fleck,\nAnd double in air and water showed\nThe tinted maples along the Neck;\nThrough frost flower clusters of pale star-mist,\nAnd gentian fringes of amethyst,\nAnd royal plumes of golden-rod,\nThe grazing cattle on Centry trod.\n\nBut as they who see not, the Quakers saw\nThe world about them; they only thought\nWith deep thanksgiving and pious awe\nOn the great deliverance God had wrought.\nThrough lane and alley the gazing town\nNoisily followed them up and down;\nSome with scoffing and brutal jeer,\nSome with pity and words of cheer.\n\nOne brave voice rose above the din.\nUpsall, gray with his length of days,\nCried from the door of his Red Lion Inn\n\"Men of Boston, give God the praise\nNo more shall innocent blood call down\nThe bolts of wrath on your guilty town.\nThe freedom of worship, dear to you,\nIs dear to all, and to all is due.\n\n\"I see the vision of days to come,\nWhen your beautiful City of the Bay\nShall be Christian liberty's chosen home,\nAnd none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay.\nThe varying notes of worship shall blend\nAnd as one great prayer to God ascend,\nAnd hands of mutual charity raise\nWalls of salvation and gates of praise.\"\n\nSo passed the Quakers through Boston town,\nWhose painful ministers sighed to see\nThe walls of their sheep-fold falling down,\nAnd wolves of heresy prowling free.\nBut the years went on, and brought no wrong;\nWith milder counsels the State grew strong,\nAs outward Letter and inward Light\nKept the balance of truth aright.\n\nThe Puritan spirit perishing not,\nTo Concord's yeomen the signal sent,\nAnd spake in the voice of the cannon-shot\nThat severed the chains of a continent.\nWith its gentler mission of peace and good-will\nThe thought of the Quaker is living still,\nAnd the freedom of soul he prophesied\nIs gospel and law where the martyrs died.\n1880.\n\n\n\n\nVALUATION.\n\nTHE old Squire said, as he stood by his gate,\nAnd his neighbor, the Deacon, went by,\n\"In spite of my bank stock and real estate,\nYou are better off, Deacon, than I.\n\n\"We're both growing old, and the end's drawing near,\nYou have less of this world to resign,\nBut in Heaven's appraisal your assets, I fear,\nWill reckon up greater than mine.\n\n\"They say I am rich, but I'm feeling so poor,\nI wish I could swap with you even\nThe pounds I have lived for and laid up in store\nFor the shillings and pence you have given.\"\n\n\"Well, Squire,\" said the Deacon, with shrewd\ncommon sense,\nWhile his eye had a twinkle of fun,\n\"Let your pounds take the way of my shillings\nand pence,\nAnd the thing can be easily done!\"\n1880.\n\n\n\n\nRABBI ISHMAEL.\n\n\"Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha said, Once, I entered into the Holy of Holies\n[as High Priest] to burn incense, when I saw Aktriel [the Divine Crown]\nJah, Lord of Hosts, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, who said\nunto me, 'Ishmael, my son, bless me.' I answered, 'May it please Thee to\nmake Thy compassion prevail over Thine anger; may it be revealed above\nThy other attributes; mayest Thou deal with Thy children according to\nit, and not according to the strict measure of judgment.' It seemed to\nme that He bowed His head, as though to answer Amen to my blessing.\"--\nTalmud (Beraehoth, I. f. 6. b.)\n\n\nTHE Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin\nOf the world heavy upon him, entering in\nThe Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face\nWith terrible splendor filling all the place.\n\"O Ishmael Ben Elisha!\" said a voice,\n\"What seekest thou? What blessing is thy choice?\"\nAnd, knowing that he stood before the Lord,\nWithin the shadow of the cherubim,\nWide-winged between the blinding light and him,\nHe bowed himself, and uttered not a word,\nBut in the silence of his soul was prayer\n\"O Thou Eternal! I am one of all,\nAnd nothing ask that others may not share.\nThou art almighty; we are weak and small,\nAnd yet Thy children: let Thy mercy spare!\"\nTrembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place\nOf the insufferable glory, lo! a face\nOf more than mortal tenderness, that bent\nGraciously down in token of assent,\nAnd, smiling, vanished! With strange joy elate,\nThe wondering Rabbi sought the temple's gate.\nRadiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood\nAnd cried aloud unto the multitude\n\"O Israel, hear! The Lord our God is good!\nMine eyes have seen his glory and his grace;\nBeyond his judgments shall his love endure;\nThe mercy of the All Merciful is sure!\"\n1881.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE.\n\nH. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula\n(ii. 166) mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the little fishing\nport of Bradore, with the inscription upon it which is given in the\npoem.\n\nA DREAR and desolate shore!\nWhere no tree unfolds its leaves,\nAnd never the spring wind weaves\nGreen grass for the hunter's tread;\nA land forsaken and dead,\nWhere the ghostly icebergs go\nAnd come with the ebb and flow\nOf the waters of Bradore!\n\nA wanderer, from a land\nBy summer breezes fanned,\nLooked round him, awed, subdued,\nBy the dreadful solitude,\nHearing alone the cry\nOf sea-birds clanging by,\nThe crash and grind of the floe,\nWail of wind and wash of tide.\n\"O wretched land!\" he cried,\n\"Land of all lands the worst,\nGod forsaken and curst!\nThy gates of rock should show\nThe words the Tuscan seer\nRead in the Realm of Woe\nHope entereth not here!\"\n\nLo! at his feet there stood\nA block of smooth larch wood,\nWaif of some wandering wave,\nBeside a rock-closed cave\nBy Nature fashioned for a grave;\nSafe from the ravening bear\nAnd fierce fowl of the air,\nWherein to rest was laid\nA twenty summers' maid,\nWhose blood had equal share\nOf the lands of vine and snow,\nHalf French, half Eskimo.\nIn letters uneffaced,\nUpon the block were traced\nThe grief and hope of man,\nAnd thus the legend ran\n\"We loved her!\nWords cannot tell how well!\nWe loved her!\nGod loved her!\nAnd called her home to peace and rest.\nWe love her.\"\n\nThe stranger paused and read.\n\"O winter land!\" he said,\n\"Thy right to be I own;\nGod leaves thee not alone.\nAnd if thy fierce winds blow\nOver drear wastes of rock and snow,\nAnd at thy iron gates\nThe ghostly iceberg waits,\nThy homes and hearts are dear.\nThy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust\nIs sanctified by hope and trust;\nGod's love and man's are here.\nAnd love where'er it goes\nMakes its own atmosphere;\nIts flowers of Paradise\nTake root in the eternal ice,\nAnd bloom through Polar snows!\"\n1881.","title":"Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and other poems: Part 6 From Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":14231}