A Welcome to Lowell

Take our hands, James Russell Lowell, Our hearts are all thy own; To-day we bid thee welcome Not for ourselves alone.

In the long years of thy absence Some of us have grown old, And some have passed the portals Of the Mystery untold;

For the hands that cannot clasp thee, For the voices that are dumb, For each and all I bid thee A grateful welcome home!

For Cedarcroft's sweet singer To the nine-fold Muses dear; For the Seer the winding Concord Paused by his door to hear;

For him, our guide and Nestor, Who the march of song began, The white locks of his ninety years Bared to thy winds, Cape Ann!

For him who, to the music Her pines and hemlocks played, Set the old and tender story Of the lorn Acadian maid;

For him, whose voice for freedom Swayed friend and foe at will, Hushed is the tongue of silver, The golden lips are still!

For her whose life of duty At scoff and menace smiled, Brave as the wife of Roland, Yet gentle as a Child.

And for him the three-hilled city Shall hold in memory long, Whose name is the hint and token Of the pleasant Fields of Song!

For the old friends unforgotten, For the young thou hast not known, I speak their heart-warm greeting; Come back and take thy own!

From England's royal farewells, And honors fitly paid, Come back, dear Russell Lowell, To Elmwood's waiting shade!

Come home with all the garlands That crown of right thy head. I speak for comrades living, I speak for comrades dead!