  “O Spring, thou youthful beauty of the year, Mother of flowers, bringer of warbling quires, Of all sweet new green things, and new desires.” Guarini’s Pastor Fido. I. Auspicious morn, com’st opportune, unbought? Bring’st thou glad furtherance in thy rosy train? Speed then, my chariot, following fast my thought, And distance on thy track the lumbering wain, O’er plain and hillock nearing her abode, The goal of expectation, fortune’s road,— The maiden waits to greet with courtesy Her bashful guest, while stranger yet is he: From friendly circle at the city’s Court She’s come to cull the flowers, to toy and play With prattling childhood, love’s delightful sport; Its smile call forth, to scent the new-mown hay, Enjoy the wholesome laughter, simple mien, Of country people in this rural scene. “So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.” Shenstone. II. Ah! why so brief the visit, short his stay? The acquaintance so surprising, and so sweet, Stolen is my heart, ’tis journeying far away, With that shy stranger whom my voice did greet. That hour so fertile of entrancing thought, So rapt the conversation, and so free,— My heart lost soundings, tenderly upcaught, Driven by soft sails of love and ecstasy! Was I then? was I? clasped in Love’s embrace, And touched with ardors of divinity? Spake with my chosen lover face to face, Espoused then truly? such my destiny? I cannot tell; but own the pleasing theft, That when the stranger went, I was of Love bereft. “Though the bias of her nature was not to thought but to sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as to meet intellectual persons by the fulness of her heart, warming them by her sentiments; believing, as she did, that, by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves noble.” Not all the brilliant beauties I have seen, Mid the gay splendors of some Southern hall, In jewelled grandeur, or in plainest mien, Did so my fancy and my heart enthral, As doth this noble woman, Nature’s queen! Such hearty greeting from her lips did fall, And I ennobled was through her esteem; At once made sharer of her confidence, As by enchantment of some rapturous dream; With subtler vision gifted, finer sense, She loosed my tongue’s refraining diffidence, And softer accents lent our varying theme: So much my Lady others doth surpass, I read them all through her transparent glass. “Books have always a secret influence on the understanding: we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, though without any desire for improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises will imperceptibly advance to goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.” XIII. My Lady reads, with judgment and good taste, Books not too many, but the wisest, best, Pregnant with sentiment sincere and chaste, Rightly conceived were they and aptly dressed: These wells of learning tastes she at the source,— Johnson’s poised periods, FÉnelon’s deep sense, Taylor’s mellifluous and sage discourse, Majestic Milton’s epic eloquence,— Nor these alone her thoughts do all engage, But classic authors of the modern time, And the great masters of the ancient age, In prose alike and of the lofty rhyme: Montaigne and Cowper, Plutarch’s gallery, Blind Homer’s Iliad and his Odyssey. “Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make: I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss I feel—I feel it all.” Wordsworth. XIV. Not Wordsworth’s genius, Pestalozzi’s love, The stream have sounded of clear infancy. Baptismal waters from the Head above These babes I foster daily are to me; I dip my pitcher in these living springs And draw, from depths below, sincerity; Unsealed, mine eyes behold all outward things Arrayed in splendors of divinity. What mount of vision can with mine compare? Not Roman Jove nor yet Olympian Zeus Darted from loftier ether through bright air One spark of holier fire for human use. Glad tidings thence these angels downward bring, As at their birth the heavenly choirs do sing. “Fresh as the morning, earnest as the hour That calls the noisy world to grateful sleep, Our silent thought reveres the nameless power That high seclusion round thy life doth keep.” Sanborn. XV. Daughter, beloved of all, thy tender eye, Sweet disposition, and thy gentle voice, Make every heart, full soon thy close ally, Respect thy wishes, thine unspoken choice,— Hastening, unbidden, therewith to comply; They in thy cheerful countenance rejoice, Kindness unfailing, and quick sympathy. Peacemaker thou, with equanimity And aspirations far above thy care, Leavest no duty slighted or undone, Living for thy dear kindred, always there, Faithful as rising and as setting sun. Can I of lovelier mansion be possest, Than in thy heart to dwell a welcome guest? “Stern daughter of the voice of God! O Duty, if that name thou love, Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove; Thou who art victory and law, When empty terrors overawe; And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!” Wordsworth. XVI. When I remember with what buoyant heart, Midst war’s alarms and woes of civil strife, In youthful eagerness, thou didst depart, At peril of thy safety, peace, and life, To nurse the wounded soldier, swathe the dead— How piercÈd soon by fever’s poisoned dart, And brought unconscious home, with wildered head— Thou, ever since, mid languor and dull pain, To conquer fortune, cherish kindred dear, Hast with grave studies vexed a sprightly brain, In myriad households kindled love and cheer; Ne’er from thyself by Fame’s loud trump beguiled, Sounding in this and the farther hemisphere:— I press thee to my heart, as Duty’s faithful child. “In deepest passions of my grief-swoll’n breast, Sweet soul, this only comfort seizeth me, That so few years should make thee so much blest, And give such wings to reach eternity.” Brown’s Shepherd’s Pipe. XVII. ’T was not permitted thee the Fates to please, And with survivors share our happier day; For smitten early wast thou by disease, Whilst with thy sisters thou didst smile and play. Wasted by pains and lingering decay, Life’s glowing currents at the source did freeze; Yet, ere the angel summoned thee away, Above thy cheerful couch affection’s ray Did brightly shine, and all thy sufferings ease. Dear child of grace! so patient and so strong, Bound to thy duty by quick sympathy, They did our hearts irreparable wrong To break the promise of thy infancy; Ah me! life is not life, deprived of thee. “Will’t ne’er be morning? will that promised light Ne’er break, and clear these clouds of night? Sweet Phosphor, bring the day, Whose conquering ray May chase these fogs: sweet Phosphor, bring the day.” Quarles. XVIII. LOVE’S MORROW. I. It was but yesterday That all was bright and fair: Came over the sea, So merrily, News from my darling there. Now over the sea Comes hither to me Knell of despair,— “No more, no longer there!” II. Ah! gentle May, Couldst thou not stay? Why hurriedst thou so swift away? No—not the same— Nor can it be— That lovely name— Ever again what once it was to me. It cannot, cannot be That lovely name to me. III. I cannot think her dead, So lately, sweetly wed; She who had tasted bliss, A mother’s virgin kiss, Rich gifts conferred to bless With costliest happiness, Nobility and grace To ornament her place. IV. Broken the golden band, Severed the silken strand, Ye sisters four! Still to me two remain, And two have gone before: Our loss, her gain,— And He who gave can all restore. And yet—Oh! why, My heart doth cry, Why take her thus away? V. I wake in tears and sorrow: Wearily I say, “Come, come, fair morrow, And chase my grief away!” Night-long I say, VI. “Comes not the welcome morrow,” My boding heart doth say; Still grief from grief doth borrow; “My child is far away.” Still as I pray The deeper swells my sorrow. Break, break! The risen day Takes not my grief away. VII. Full well I know, Joy’s spring is fathomless,— Its fountains overflow To cheer and bless, VIII. “Cease, cease, new grief to borrow!” Last night I heard her say; “For sorrow hath no morrow, ’T is born of yesterday. Translated thou shalt be, My cloudless daylight see, And bathe, as I, in fairest morrows endlessly.” “Shall not from these remains, From this low mound, dear ashes of the dead, The violet spring?” Persius. XIX. O Death! thou utterest deeper speech, A tenderer, truer tone, Than all our languages can reach, Though all were voiced in one. Thy glance is deep, and, far beyond All that our eyes do see, Assures to fairest hopes and fond Their immortality. Sing, sing, the Immortals, The Ancients of days, Ever crowding the portals Of Time’s peopled ways; These Babes ever stealing Into Eden’s glad feeling, The fore-world revealing, God’s face ne’er concealing. XX. Voyager across the seas, In my arms thy form I press; Come, my Baby, me to please, Blue-eyed nurseling, motherless! All is strange and beautiful, Every sense finds glad surprise, Life is lovely, wonderful, Faces fair, and beaming eyes. Safe, ye angels, keep this child, Life-long guard her innocence, Winsome ways, and temper mild; Heaven, our home, be her defence! “O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?” Shakespeare. XXI. Dear Heart! if aught to human love I’ve owed For noble furtherance of the good and fair; Climbed I, by bold emprise, the dizzying stair To excellence, and was by thee approved, In memory cherished and the more beloved; If fortune smiled, and late-won liberty,— ’T was thy kind favor all, thy generous legacy. Nor didst thou spare thy large munificence Me here to pleasure amply and maintain, But conjured from suspicion and mischance, Exile, misapprehension, cold disdain, For my loved cloud-rapt dream, supremacy; To bright reality transformed romance, Crowning with smiles the hard-earned victory. “The hills were reared, the valleys scooped in vain, If Learning’s altars vanish from the plain.” Channing. XXII. Calm vale of comfort, peace, and industry, Well doth thy name thy homebred traits express!— Considerate people, neighborly and free, Proud of their monuments, their ancestry, Their circling river’s quiet loveliness, Their noble townsmen’s fame and history. Nor less I glory in each goodly trait, Child of another creed, a stricter State; I chose thee for my haunt in troublous time, My home in days of late prosperity, And laud thee now in this familiar rhyme; Here on thy bosom the last summons wait To scenes, if lovelier, still reflecting thee, Resplendent both in hope and memory.
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