But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
Amid her young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachusett hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart.
Monadnock, on his forehead hoar,
Doth seal the sacred trust;
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy the dust.
THE IMMORTAL MIND.
WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay,
But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace,
By steps, each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey?
Eternal, boundless, undecayed,
A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth or skies displayed,
Shall it survey, shall it recall;
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all that was at once appears.
Before creation peopled earth,
Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
And where the furthest heaven had birth,
The spirit trace its rising track.
And where the future mars or makes,
Its glance dilate o'er all to be,
While sun is quenched, or system breaks
Fixed in its own eternity.
Above all love, hope, hate, or fear,
It lives all passionless and pure;
An age shall fleet, like earthly year;
Its years as moments shall endure.
Away, away, without a wing,
O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly
A nameless and eternal thing,
Forgetting what it was to die.
THE POOR AND THE RICH.
THE rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick and stone and gold,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One would not care to hold in fee.
The rich man's son inherits cares.
The bank may break, the factory burn,
Some breath may burst his bubble shares,
And soft white hands would scarcely earr
A living that would suit his turn;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One would not care to hold in fee.
What does the poor man's son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What does the poor man's son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit,
Content that from enjoyment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What does the poor man's son inherit
A patience learned by being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it;
A fellow feeling that is sure
To make the outcast bless his door;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
Oh, rich man's son, there is a toil
That with all others level stands ;
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whitens, soft white hands;
This is the best crop from thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.
Oh, poor man's son, scorn not thy state!
There is worse weariness than thine,
In being merely rich and great;
Work only makes the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign,
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.
Both heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last-
Both, children of the same dear God.
Prove title to your heirship vast,
By record of a well-filled past!
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.
THE breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast;
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark,
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conquerors come,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drum,
And the trumpet that sings of fame
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear:
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amid the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free.
The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest, by the white waves' foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared:
This was their welcome home.
There were men with hoary hair
Amid that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;'
There was manhood's brow, serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found — Freedom to worship God!
LIGHT FOR ALL.
You cannot pay with money
The million sons of toil-
The sailor on the ocean,
The peasant on the soil,
The laborer in the quarry,
The heaver of the coal;
Your money pays the hand,
But it cannot pay the soul.
You gaze on the cathedral,
Whose turrets meet the sky;
Remember the foundations
That in earth and darkness lie;
For, were not these foundations
So darkly resting here,
Yon towers could never soar up
So proudly in the air.
The work-shop must be crowded,
That the palace may be bright;
If the ploughman did not plough,
Then the poet could not write.
Then let every toil be hallowed
That man performs for man,
And have its share of honor,
As a part of one great plan.
See, light darts down from heaven,
And enters where it may;
The eyes of all earth's people
Are cheered with one bright day.
And let the mind's true sunshine
Be spread o'er earth so free,
And fill the souls of men,
As the waters fill the sea.
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