Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/168

136   His track, in mould and dust of drouth,
 * On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves,

And in the fireless chimney’s mouth
 * His web the spider weaves.

The leaning barn, about to fall,
 * Resounds no more on husking eves;

No cattle low in yard or stall,
 * No thresher beats his sheaves.

So sad, so drear! It seems almost
 * Some haunting Presence makes its sign;

That down yon shadowy lane some ghost
 * Might drive his spectral kine!

O home so desolate and lorn!
 * Did all thy memories die with thee?

Were any wed, were any born,
 * Beneath this low roof-tree?

Whose axe the wall of forest broke,
 * And let the waiting sunshine through?

What goodwife sent the earliest smoke
 * Up the great chimney flue?

Did rustic lovers hither come?
 * Did maidens, swaying back and forth

In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom,
 * Make light their toil with mirth?

Did child feet patter on the stair?
 * Did boyhood frolic in the snow?

Did gray age, in her elbow chair,
 * Knit, rocking to and fro?

The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze,
 * The pine’s slow whisper, cannot tell;

Low mounds beneath the hemlock-trees
 * Keep the home secrets well.

Cease, mother-land, to fondly boast
 * Of sons far off who strive and thrive,

Forgetful that each swarming host
 * Must leave an emptier hive!

O wanderers from ancestral soil,
 * Leave noisome mill and chaffering store:

Gird up your loins for sturdier toil,
 * And build the home once more!

Come back to bayberry-scented slopes,
 * And fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine;

Breathe airs blown over holt and copse
 * Sweet with black birch and pine.

What matter if the gains are small
 * That life’s essential wants supply?

Your homestead’s title gives you all
 * That idle wealth can buy.

All that the many-dollared crave,
 * The brick-walled slaves of ’Change and mart,

Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have,
 * More dear for lack of art.

Your own sole masters, freedom-willed,
 * With none to bid you go or stay,

Till the old fields your fathers tilled,
 * As manly men as they!

With skill that spares your toiling hands,
 * And chemic aid that science brings,

Reclaim the waste and outworn lands,
 * And reign thereon as kings!

young friends, sit by me, Under May’s blown apple-tree, While these home-birds in and out Through the blossoms flit about. Hear a story, strange and old, By the wild red Indians told, How the robin came to be: Once a great chief left his son,— Well-beloved, his only one,— When the boy was well-nigh grown, In the trial-lodge alone. Left for tortures long and slow Youths like him must undergo, Who their pride of manhood test, Lacking water, food, and rest.

Seven days the fast he kept, Seven nights he never slept. Then the young boy, wrung with pain, Weak from nature’s overstrain, Faltering, moaned a low complaint: “Spare me, father, for I faint!” But the chieftain, haughty-eyed, Hid his pity in his pride. “You shall be a hunter good, Knowing never lack of food: