On A Picture Of Harvey Birch
I know not if thy noble worth
My country's annals claim,
For in her brief, bright history
I have not read thy name.
I know not if thou e'er didst live;
Save in the vivid thought
Of him who chronicled thy life
With silent suffering fraught.
Yet, in thy history I see
Full many a great soul's lot;
Who joins that martyr-army's ranks,
That the world knoweth not; —
Who cannot weep 'melodious tears,'
For fame or sympathy;
But who, in silence, bear their doom
To suffer and to die; —
For whom no poet's harp is struck,
No laurel wreath is twined;
Who pass unheard — unknown, away,
And leave no trace behind; —
Who, but for their unwavering trust
In Justice, Truth, and God,
Would faint upon their weary way,
And perish by the road.
Truth, Justice, God! Oh mighty faith,
To bear us up unharmed;
The gates of Hell may not prevail
Against a soul so armed.
To A Silent Poet
I see the sons of Genius rise
The nobles of our land;
And foremost in the gathering ranks
I see the poet band.
That Priesthood of the beautiful,
To whom alone 'tis given
To lift our spirits from the dust,
Back to their native heaven.
But there is one amid the throng,
Not past his manhood's prime;
The laurel wreath upon his brow,
Has greener grown with time.
And in his eye yet glows the light
Of the celestial fire;
But cast beside him, on the earth,
Is his neglected lyre.
The lyre, whose high, heroic notes
A thousand hearts have stirred,
Lies mute, - the skillful hand no more
Awakes one slumbering chord.
Oh poet! rouse thee from thy dreams!
Wake from thy voiceless slumbers!
And once again give to the breeze
The music of thy numbers.
Sing, for our country claims her bard,
She listens for thy strains;
Sing, for upon our jarring earth,
Too much of discord reigns.
The Dumb Creation
Deal kindly with those speechless ones,
That throng our gladsome earth;
Say not the bounteous gift of life
Alone is nothing worth.
What though with mournful memories
They sigh not for the past?
What though their ever joyous Now
No future overcast?
No aspirations fill their breast
With longings undefined;
They live, they love, and they are blest,
For what they seek they find.
They see no mystery in the stars,
No wonder in the plain;
And Life's enigma wakes in them
No questions dark and vain.
To them earth is a final home,
A bright and blest abode;
Their lives unconsciously flow on
In harmony with God.
To this fair world our human hearts
Their hopes and longings bring,
And o'er its beauty and its bloom
Their own dark shadows fling.
Between the future and the past
In wild unrest we stand;
And ever as our feet advance,
Retreats the promised land.
And though Love, Fame, and Wealth and Power,
Bind in their gilded bond,
We pine to grasp the unattained-
The something still beyond.
And, beating on their prison bars,
Our spirits ask more room,
And with unanswered questionings,
They pierce beyond the tomb.
Then say thou not, oh doubtful heart,
There is no life to come;
That in some tearless, cloudless land,
Thou shalt not find thy home.
As when untaught and blind,
To the mute stone the pagan bows his knee,
Spirit of Love! phantom of my own mind!
So have I worshipped thee!
When first a laughing child,
I gazed on nature with a wondering eye,
I learned of her in calm and tempest wild,
This thirst for sympathy.
I saw the flowers appear,
And spread their petals out to meet the sun,
The dew-drops on their glistening leaves draw near
And mingle into one.
And if a harp was stirred
By the soft pulses of some wandering sound,
Attuned to the same key, then I have heard
Its chords untouched respond.
Fast through the vaulted sky,
Giving no sound or light, when storms were loud,
I saw the electric cloud in silence fly, -
Seeking its sister cloud.
I saw the winds, the sea,
And all the hosts of heaven in bright array,
Governed by this sweet law of sympathy,
Roll on their destined way.
And then my spirit pined,
And, like the sea-shell for its parent sea,
Moaned for those kindred souls it could not find,
And panted to be free.
And then came wild despair,
And laid her palsying hand upon my soul,
And her dread ministers were with her there,
The dagger and the bowl.
Oh God of life and light,
Thou who didst stay my hand in that dread hour,
Thou who didst save me in that fearful night,
Of maddening passion's power!
Before thy throne I bow;
I tear my worshipped idols from their shrine;
I give to thee, though bruised and aching now,
This heart, - oh! make it thine.
I've sought to fill in vain
Its lonely, silent depths with human love:
Help me to cast away each earthly claim
And rise to thee above.
Webster
'When I and all those that hear me shall have gone to our last home, and
when the mould may have gathered on our memories, as it will on our
tombs:' - _Webster's Speech in the Senate, July, 1850._
The mould upon thy memory! - No,
Not while one note is rung,
Of those divine, immortal songs
Milton and Shakespeare sung; -
Not till the night of years enshrouds
The Anglo-Saxon tongue.
No! let the flood of Time roll on,
And men and empires die; -
Genius enthroned on lofty heights
Can its dread course defy,
And here on earth, can claim the gift
Of immortality:
Can save from that Lethean tide
That sweeps so dark along,
A people's name; - a people's fame
To future time prolong,
As Troy still lives and only lives
In Homer's deathless song.
What though to buried Nineveh
The traveller may come,
And roll away the stone that hides
That long forgotten tomb; -
He questions its mute past in vain,
Its oracles are dumb.
What though he stand where Balbec stood
Gigantic in its pride;
No voice comes o'er that silent waste,
Lone, desolate and wide; -
They had no bard, no orator,
No statesman, - and they died.
They lived their little span of life,
They lived and died in vain; -
They sank ingloriously beneath
Oblivion's silent reign,
As sank beneath the Dead Sea wave
The Cities of the Plain.
But for those famed, immortal lands,
Greece and imperial Rome,
Where Genius left its shining mark,
And found its chosen home,
All eloquent with mind they speak,
Wood, wave and crumbling dome.
The honeyed words of Plato still
Float on the echoing air,
The thunders of Demosthenes
AEgean waters bear,
And the pilgrim to the Forum hears
The voice of Tully there.
And thus thy memory shall live,
And thus thy fame resound,
While far-off future ages roll
Their solemn cycles round,
And make this wide, this fair New World
An ancient, classic ground.
Then with our Country's glorious name
Thine own shall be entwined;
Within the Senate's pillared hall
Thine image shall be shrined;
And on the nation's Law shall gleam
Light from thy giant mind.
Our proudest monuments no more
May rise to meet the sky,
The stately Capitol o'erthrown,
Low in the dust may lie;
But mind, sublime above the wreck,
Immortal - cannot die.
