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Reign did silence o’er the stage
       As night passed on
And destiny fraught with laurels sat,
       Sweet laurels never won,
Till was read aloud her name
       And forth the sweet voiced singer came.
While grim old night worn out with age,
       Listening to the vibrating stage,
Wept because he must pass on.

       But hark! they do applaud her so:
She bows, she smiles and then looks round,
       She opens her lips and lo!
Bursts forth a trembling sea of sound:
       A sea voluptuous in its swell.
The waves rose high and then they fell;
       While beat the etherial shores, the tide,
And ebbing then the waves subside
       To music’s gentler flow.

O’er the vast and blue expanse
       Leaped the merry music on:
Around the universe, the flow
       Of that angelic tone;
Till heaven’s shores, the tidelets lashed
       And wavelets o’er the portals dashed.
The billowy waves break forth the sounds
       Reach the great white throne and rebound
Echoing the song of home.

Your head is wild with books, Sybil,

     But your heart is good and kind—

I feel a new contentment near you,

     A pleasure of the mind.

Glad should I be to sit beside you,

     And let long hours glide by,

Reading, through all your sweet narrations,

     The language of your eye.

Since the maternal saint I worshipped

     Did look and love her last,

No woman o’er my wayward spirit

     Such gentle spell has cast.

Oh! tell me of your varied fortunes,

     For you know not, from your face

Looks out strange sadness, lit with rapture,

     And melancholy grace.

You are a gem, whose native brilliance

     Could never wholly reign,

An opal, whose prismatic fire

     A white cloud doth restrain.

And thus, the mood to which you move me

     Is never perfect, quite,

‘Tis pity, wonderment, and pleasure,

     Opacity and light.

Bear me then in your presence, Sybil,

     And leave your hand in mine,

For, though human be my nature,

     You’ve made it half divine. 

Not less because in purple I descended
The western day through what you called
The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?
What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,
And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.
I was myself the compass of that sea:

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.

Over the river, and through the wood,
  To grandfather’s house we go;
       The horse knows the way
       To carry the sleigh
  Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood—
  Oh, how the wind does blow!
       It stings the toes
       And bites the nose
  As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
  To have a first-rate play.
       Hear the bells ring
       “Ting-a-ling-ding”,
  Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood
  Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
       Spring over the ground,
       Like a hunting-hound!
  For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood,
  And straight through the barn-yard gate.
       We seem to go
       Extremely slow,—
  It is so hard to wait!

Over the river and through the wood—
  Now grandmother’s cap I spy!
       Hurrah for the fun!
       Is the pudding done?
  Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
   Our harvesting is gladly o’er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
   Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
   We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
   We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
   The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
   Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of our hath brought us grace;
   When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
   But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
   Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
   From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
   Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
   Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
   To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
   Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
   Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
   We could not thank thee for them all.

HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies

She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:
Soon as appear’d the Goddess long desir’d,
Sick at the view, she languish’d and expir’d;
Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,
Since in thy pow’r, as in thy will before,
To sooth the griefs, which thou did’st once deplore.
May heav’nly grace the sacred sanction give
To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot’s name,
But to conduct to heav’ns refulgent fane,
May fiery coursers sweep th’ ethereal plain,
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.

His friends went off and left Him dead
In Joseph’s subterranean bed,
Embalmed with myrrh and sweet aloes,
And wrapped in snow-white burial clothes.

Then shrewd men came and set a seal
Upon His grave, lest thieves should steal
His lifeless form away, and claim
For Him and undeserving fame.

“There is no use,” the soldiers said,
“Of standing sentries by the dead.”
Wherefore, they drew their cloaks around
Themselves, and fell upon the ground,
And slept like dead men, all night through,
In the pale moonlight and chilling dew.

A muffed whiff of sudden breath
Ruffled the passive air of death.

He woke, and raised Himself in bed;
    Recalled how He was crucified;
Touched both hands’ fingers to His head,
    And lightly felt His fresh-healed side.

Then with a deep, triumphant sigh,
He coolly put His grave-clothes by—
Folded the sweet, white winding sheet,
    The toweling, the linen bands,
    The napkin, all with careful hands—
And left the borrowed chamber neat.

His steps were like the breaking day:
    So soft across the watch He stole,
    He did not wake a single soul,
Nor spill one dewdrop by the way.

Now Calvary was loveliness:
    Lilies that flowered thereupon
Pulled off the white moon’s pallid dress,
    And put the morning’s vesture on.

“Why seek the living among the dead?
He is not here,” the angel said.

The early winds took up the words,
And bore them to the lilting birds,
The leafing trees, and everything
That breathed the living breath of spring.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Not to dance with her
Was such a trivial thing

There were girls more fair than she,––

To-day
Ten girls dressed in white.
Each had a white rose wreath.

They made a dead man’s arch
And ten strong men
Carried a body through.

Not to dance with her
Was a trivial thing.

The drowsy dawn from many a low-built shed,
Beheld his kindred driven to their task;
Late evening saw them turn with weary tread
And painful faces back; and dost thou ask
How sang these bondmen? how their suff’rings mask?
Song is the soul of sympathy divine,
And hath an inner ray where hope may bask;
Song turns the poorest waters into wine,
Illumines exile hearts and makes their faces shine.