Part 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger

OCCASIONAL POEMS

BY

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

CONTENTS:

EVA A LAY OF OLD TIME A SONG OF HARVEST KENOZA LAKE FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL THE QUAKER ALUMNI OUR RIVER REVISITED "THE LAURELS" JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING'S HOUSE OF WORSHIP HYMN FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION CHICAGO KINSMAN THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA LEXINGTON THE LIBRARY "I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN" CENTENNIAL HYMN AT SCHOOL-CLOSE HYMN OF THE CHILDREN THE LANDMARKS GARDEN A GREETING GODSPEED WINTER ROSES THE REUNION NORUMBEGA HALL THE BARTHOLDI STATUE ONE OF THE SIGNERS

EVA

Suggested by Mrs. Stowe's tale of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and written when the characters in the tale were realities by the fireside of countless American homes.

Dry the tears for holy Eva, With the blessed angels leave her; Of the form so soft and fair Give to earth the tender care.

For the golden locks of Eva Let the sunny south-land give her Flowery pillow of repose, Orange-bloom and budding rose.

In the better home of Eva Let the shining ones receive her, With the welcome-voiced psalm, Harp of gold and waving palm,

All is light and peace with Eva; There the darkness cometh never; Tears are wiped, and fetters fall. And the Lord is all in all.

Weep no more for happy Eva, Wrong and sin no more shall grieve her; Care and pain and weariness Lost in love so measureless.

Gentle Eva, loving Eva, Child confessor, true believer, Listener at the Master's knee, "Suffer such to come to me."

Oh, for faith like thine, sweet Eva, Lighting all the solemn river, And the blessings of the poor Wafting to the heavenly shore! 1852

A LAY OF OLD TIME.

Written for the Essex County Agricultural Fair, and sung at the banquet at Newburyport, October 2, 1856.

One morning of the first sad Fall, Poor Adam and his bride Sat in the shade of Eden's wall-- But on the outer side.

She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit For the chaste garb of old; He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit For Eden's drupes of gold.

Behind them, smiling in the morn, Their forfeit garden lay, Before them, wild with rock and thorn, The desert stretched away.

They heard the air above them fanned, A light step on the sward, And lo! they saw before them stand The angel of the Lord!

"Arise," he said, "why look behind, When hope is all before, And patient hand and willing mind, Your loss may yet restore?

"I leave with you a spell whose power Can make the desert glad, And call around you fruit and flower As fair as Eden had.

"I clothe your hands with power to lift The curse from off your soil; Your very doom shall seem a gift, Your loss a gain through Toil.

"Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees, To labor as to play." White glimmering over Eden's trees The angel passed away.

The pilgrims of the world went forth Obedient to the word, And found where'er they tilled the earth A garden of the Lord!

The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit And blushed with plum and pear, And seeded grass and trodden root Grew sweet beneath their care.

We share our primal parents' fate, And, in our turn and day, Look back on Eden's sworded gate As sad and lost as they.

But still for us his native skies The pitying Angel leaves, And leads through Toil to Paradise New Adams and new Eves!

A SONG OF HARVEST

For the Agricultural and Horticultural Exhibition at Amesbury and Salisbury, September 28, 1858.

This day, two hundred years ago, The wild grape by the river's side, And tasteless groundnut trailing low, The table of the woods supplied.

Unknown the apple's red and gold, The blushing tint of peach and pear; The mirror of the Powow told No tale of orchards ripe and rare.

Wild as the fruits he scorned to till, These vales the idle Indian trod; Nor knew the glad, creative skill, The joy of him who toils with God.

O Painter of the fruits and flowers! We thank Thee for thy wise design Whereby these human hands of ours In Nature's garden work with Thine.

And thanks that from our daily need The joy of simple faith is born; That he who smites the summer weed, May trust Thee for the autumn corn.

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all.

For he who blesses most is blest; And God and man shall own his worth Who toils to leave as his bequest An added beauty to the earth.

And, soon or late, to all that sow, The time of harvest shall be given; The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow, If not on earth, at last in heaven.

KENOZA LAKE.

This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the "Great Pond" the writer's boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian language signifying Pickerel) was read.

As Adam did in Paradise, To-day the primal right we claim Fair mirror of the woods and skies, We give to thee a name.

Lake of the pickerel!--let no more The echoes answer back, "Great Pond," But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore And watching hills beyond,

Let Indian ghosts, if such there be Who ply unseen their shadowy lines, Call back the ancient name to thee, As with the voice of pines.

The shores we trod as barefoot boys, The nutted woods we wandered through, To friendship, love, and social joys We consecrate anew.

Here shall the tender song be sung, And memory's dirges soft and low, And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, And mirth shall overflow,

Harmless as summer lightning plays From a low, hidden cloud by night, A light to set the hills ablaze, But not a bolt to smite.

In sunny South and prairied West Are exiled hearts remembering still, As bees their hive, as birds their nest, The homes of Haverhill.

They join us in our rites to-day; And, listening, we may hear, erelong, From inland lake and ocean bay, The echoes of our song.

Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail,-- No fairer face than thine shall take The sunset's golden veil.

Long be it ere the tide of trade Shall break with harsh-resounding din The quiet of thy banks of shade, And hills that fold thee in.

Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, The shy loon sound his trumpet-note, Wing-weary from his fields of air, The wild-goose on thee float.

Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir, Thy beauty our deforming strife; Thy woods and waters minister The healing of their life.

And sinless Mirth, from care released, Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky, Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast The Master's loving eye.

And when the summer day grows dim, And light mists walk thy mimic sea, Revive in us the thought of Him Who walked on Galilee!

FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL

The Persian's flowery gifts, the shrine Of fruitful Ceres, charm no more; The woven wreaths of oak and pine Are dust along the Isthmian shore.

But beauty hath its homage still, And nature holds us still in debt; And woman's grace and household skill, And manhood's toil, are honored yet.

And we, to-day, amidst our flowers And fruits, have come to own again The blessings of the summer hours, The early and the latter rain;

To see our Father's hand once more Reverse for us the plenteous horn Of autumn, filled and running o'er With fruit, and flower, and golden corn!

Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold; Once more with harvest-song and shout Is Nature's bloodless triumph told.

Our common mother rests and sings, Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves; Her lap is full of goodly things, Her brow is bright with autumn leaves.

Oh, favors every year made new! Oh, gifts with rain and sunshine sent The bounty overruns our due, The fulness shames our discontent.

We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on; We murmur, but the corn-ears fill, We choose the shadow, but the sun That casts it shines behind us still.

God gives us with our rugged soil The power to make it Eden-fair, And richer fruits to crown our toil Than summer-wedded islands bear.

Who murmurs at his lot to-day? Who scorns his native fruit and bloom? Or sighs for dainties far away, Beside the bounteous board of home?

Thank Heaven, instead, that Freedom's arm Can change a rocky soil to gold,-- That brave and generous lives can warm A clime with northern ices cold.

And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain! 1859

THE QUAKER ALUMNI.

Read at the Friends' School Anniversary, Providence, R. I., 6th mo., 1860.

From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine, Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again; And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool, Play over the old game of going to school.

All your strifes and vexations, your whims and complaints, (You were not saints yourselves, if the children of saints!) All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done, Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one!

How widely soe'er you have strayed from the fold, Though your "thee" has grown "you," and your drab blue and gold, To the old friendly speech and the garb's sober form, Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you warm.

But, the first greetings over, you glance round the hall; Your hearts call the roll, but they answer not all Through the turf green above them the dead cannot hear; Name by name, in the silence, falls sad as a tear!

In love, let us trust, they were summoned so soon rom the morning of life, while we toil through its noon; They were frail like ourselves, they had needs like our own, And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone.

Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame, Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is the same; Though we sink in the darkness, His arms break our fall, And in death as in life, He is Father of all!

We are older: our footsteps, so light in the play Of the far-away school-time, move slower to-day;-- Here a beard touched with frost, there a bald, shining crown, And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown.

But faith should be cheerful, and trust should be glad, And our follies and sins, not our years, make us sad. Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim, And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim?

Life is brief, duty grave; but, with rain-folded wings, Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings; And we, of all others, have reason to pay The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on our way;

For the counsels that turned from the follies of youth; For the beauty of patience, the whiteness of truth; For the wounds of rebuke, when love tempered its edge; For the household's restraint, and the discipline's hedge;

For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to the least Of the creatures of God, whether human or beast, Bringing hope to the poor, lending strength to the frail, In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut, and jail;

For a womanhood higher and holier, by all Her knowledge of good, than was Eve ere her fall,-- Whose task-work of duty moves lightly as play, Serene as the moonlight and warm as the day;

And, yet more, for the faith which embraces the whole, Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul, Wherein letter and spirit the same channel run, And man has not severed what God has made one!

For a sense of the Goodness revealed everywhere, As sunshine impartial, and free as the air; For a trust in humanity, Heathen or Jew, And a hope for all darkness the Light shineth through.

Who scoffs at our birthright?--the words of the seers, And the songs of the bards in the twilight of years, All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage, In prophet and priest, are our true heritage.

The Word which the reason of Plato discerned; The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-fire burned; The soul of the world which the Stoic but guessed, In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed!

No honors of war to our worthies belong; Their plain stem of life never flowered into song; But the fountains they opened still gush by the way, And the world for their healing is better to-day.

He who lies where the minster's groined arches curve down To the tomb-crowded transept of England's renown, The glorious essayist, by genius enthroned, Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned,--

Who through the world's pantheon walked in his pride, Setting new statues up, thrusting old ones aside, And in fiction the pencils of history dipped, To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt,--

How vainly he labored to sully with blame The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame! Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed!

For the sake of his true-hearted father before him; For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore him; For the sake of his gifts, and the works that outlive him, And his brave words for freedom, we freely forgive him!

There are those who take note that our numbers are small,-- New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall; But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of His own, And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown.

The last of the sect to his fathers may go, Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show; But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years, Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears.

Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone, In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on, Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run, And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun.

Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to forget To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our debt?-- Hide their words out of sight, like the garb that they wore, And for Barclay's Apology offer one more?

Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears, And festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears? Talk of Woolman's unsoundness? count Penn heterodox? And take Cotton Mather in place of George Fox?

Make our preachers war-chaplains? quote Scripture to take The hunted slave back, for Onesimus' sake? Go to burning church-candles, and chanting in choir, And on the old meeting-house stick up a spire?

No! the old paths we'll keep until better are shown, Credit good where we find it, abroad or our own; And while "Lo here" and "Lo there" the multitude call, Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all.

The good round about us we need not refuse, Nor talk of our Zion as if we were Jews; But why shirk the badge which our fathers have worn, Or beg the world's pardon for having been born?

We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer, Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share; Truth to us and to others is equal and one Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun?

Well know we our birthright may serve but to show How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow; But we need not disparage the good which we hold; Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold!

Enough and too much of the sect and the name. What matters our label, so truth be our aim? The creed may be wrong, but the life may be true, And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue.

So the man be a man, let him worship, at will, In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill. When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon good town For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown?

And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown, When she counts up the worthies her annals have known, Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect To measure her love, and mete out her respect.

Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand, Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,-- Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen.

One holy name bearing, no longer they need Credentials of party, and pass-words of creed The new song they sing hath a threefold accord, And they own one baptism, one faith, and one Lord!

But the golden sands run out: occasions like these Glide swift into shadow, like sails on the seas While we sport with the mosses and pebbles ashore, They lessen and fade, and we see them no more.

Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant thoughts seem Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme. Forgive the light measure whose changes display The sunshine and rain of our brief April day.

There are moments in life when the lip and the eye Try the question of whether to smile or to cry; And scenes and reunions that prompt like our own The tender in feeling, the playful in tone.

I, who never sat down with the boys and the girls At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,-- By courtesy only permitted to lay On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,--

I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's part In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of heart,-- On your play-ground of boyhood unbend the brow's care, And shift the old burdens our shoulders must bear.

Long live the good School! giving out year by year Recruits to true manhood and womanhood dear Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth, The living epistles and proof of its worth!

In and out let the young life as steadily flow As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go; And its sons and its daughters in prairie and town Remember its honor, and guard its renown.

Not vainly the gift of its founder was made; Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laid The blessing of Him whom in secret they sought Has owned the good work which the fathers have wrought.

To Him be the glory forever! We bear To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the tare. What we lack in our work may He find in our will, And winnow in mercy our good from the ill!

OUR RIVER.

FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT "THE LAURELS" ON THE MERRIMAC.

Jean Pierre Brissot, the famous leader of the Girondist party in the French Revolution, when a young man travelled extensively in the United States. He visited the valley of the Merrimac, and speaks in terms of admiration of the view from Moulton's hill opposite Amesbury. The "Laurel Party" so called, as composed of ladies and gentlemen in the lower valley of the Merrimac, and invited friends and guests in other sections of the country. Its thoroughly enjoyable annual festivals were held in the early summer on the pine-shaded, laurel-blossomed slopes of the Newbury side of the river opposite Pleasant Valley in Amesbury. The several poems called out by these gatherings are here printed in sequence.

Once more on yonder laurelled height The summer flowers have budded; Once more with summer's golden light The vales of home are flooded; And once more, by the grace of Him Of every good the Giver, We sing upon its wooded rim The praises of our river,

Its pines above, its waves below, The west-wind down it blowing, As fair as when the young Brissot Beheld it seaward flowing,-- And bore its memory o'er the deep, To soothe a martyr's sadness, And fresco, hi his troubled sleep, His prison-walls with gladness.

We know the world is rich with streams Renowned in song and story, Whose music murmurs through our dreams Of human love and glory We know that Arno's banks are fair, And Rhine has castled shadows, And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr Go singing down their meadows.

But while, unpictured and unsung By painter or by poet, Our river waits the tuneful tongue And cunning hand to show it,-- We only know the fond skies lean Above it, warm with blessing, And the sweet soul of our Undine Awakes to our caressing.

No fickle sun-god holds the flocks That graze its shores in keeping; No icy kiss of Dian mocks The youth beside it sleeping Our Christian river loveth most The beautiful and human; The heathen streams of Naiads boast, But ours of man and woman.

The miner in his cabin hears The ripple we are hearing; It whispers soft to homesick ears Around the settler's clearing In Sacramento's vales of corn, Or Santee's bloom of cotton, Our river by its valley-born Was never yet forgotten.

The drum rolls loud, the bugle fills The summer air with clangor; The war-storm shakes the solid hills Beneath its tread of anger; Young eyes that last year smiled in ours Now point the rifle's barrel, And hands then stained with fruits and flowers Bear redder stains of quarrel.

But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, And rivers still keep flowing, The dear God still his rain and sun On good and ill bestowing. His pine-trees whisper, "Trust and wait!" His flowers are prophesying That all we dread of change or fate His live is underlying.

And thou, O Mountain-born!--no more We ask the wise Allotter Than for the firmness of thy shore, The calmness of thy water, The cheerful lights that overlay, Thy rugged slopes with beauty, To match our spirits to our day And make a joy of duty. 1861.

REVISITED.

Read at "The Laurels," on the Merrimac, 6th month, 1865.

The roll of drums and the bugle's wailing Vex the air of our vales-no more; The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning, The share is the sword the soldier wore!

Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river, Under thy banks of laurel bloom; Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth, Sing us the songs of peace and home.

Let all the tenderer voices of nature Temper the triumph and chasten mirth, Full of the infinite love and pity For fallen martyr and darkened hearth.

But to Him who gives us beauty for ashes, And the oil of joy for mourning long, Let thy hills give thanks, and all thy waters Break into jubilant waves of song!

Bring us the airs of hills and forests, The sweet aroma of birch and pine, Give us a waft of the north-wind laden With sweethrier odors and breath of kine!

Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets, Shadows of clouds that rake the hills, The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows, The gleam and ripple of Campton rills.

Lead us away in shadow and sunshine, Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles, The winding ways of Pemigewasset, And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles.

Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges, Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall; Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken Under the shade of the mountain wall.

The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains Here in thy glory and strength repeat; Give us a taste of thy upland music, Show us the dance of thy silver feet.

Into thy dutiful life of uses Pour the music and weave the flowers; With the song of birds and bloom of meadows Lighten and gladden thy heart and ours.

Sing on! bring down, O lowland river, The joy of the hills to the waiting sea; The wealth of the vales, the pomp of mountains, The breath of the woodlands, bear with thee.

Here, in the calm of thy seaward, valley, Mirth and labor shall hold their truce; Dance of water and mill of grinding, Both are beauty and both are use.

Type of the Northland's strength and glory, Pride and hope of our home and race,-- Freedom lending to rugged labor Tints of beauty and lines of grace.

Once again, O beautiful river, Hear our greetings and take our thanks; Hither we come, as Eastern pilgrims Throng to the Jordan's sacred banks.

For though by the Master's feet untrodden, Though never His word has stilled thy waves, Well for us may thy shores be holy, With Christian altars and saintly graves.

And well may we own thy hint and token Of fairer valleys and streams than these, Where the rivers of God are full of water, And full of sap are His healing trees!

"THE LAURELS"

At the twentieth and last anniversary.

FROM these wild rocks I look to-day O'er leagues of dancing waves, and see The far, low coast-line stretch away To where our river meets the sea.