Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/37

Rh Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here
 * Could be for thee a meet reward;

Thine is a treasure far more dear: Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear
 * Of living mortal heard

The joys prepared, the promised bliss above, The holy presence of Eternal Love!

Sleep on in peace. The earth has not
 * A nobler name than thine shall be,

The deeds by martial manhood wrought, The lofty energies of thought,
 * The fire of poesy,

These have but frail and fading honors; thine Shall Time unto Eternity consign.

Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down,
 * And human pride and grandeur fall,

The herald’s line of long renown, The mitre and the kingly crown,—
 * Perishing glories all!

The pure devotion of thy generous heart Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part.

has New England’s romance fled,
 * Even as a vision of the morning!

Its rites foredone, its guardians dead, Its priestesses, bereft of dread,
 * Waking the veriest urchin’s scorning!

Gone like the Indian wizard’s yell
 * And fire-dance round the magic rock,

Forgotten like the Druid’s spell
 * At moonrise by his holy oak!

No more along the shadowy glen Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men; No more the unquiet churchyard dead Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,
 * Startling the traveller, late and lone;

As, on some night of starless weather, They silently commune together,
 * Each sitting on his own head-stone!

The roofless house, decayed, deserted, Its living tenants all departed, No longer rings with midnight revel Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil; No pale blue flame sends out its flashes Through creviced roof and shattered sashes! The witch-grass round the hazel spring May sharply to the night-air sing, But there no more shall withered hags Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters As beverage meet for Satan’s daughters; No more their mimic tones be heard, The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after! The cautious goodman nails no more A horseshoe on his outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit To his own mouth her bridle-bit; The goodwife’s churn no more refuses Its wonted culinary uses Until, with heated needle burned, The witch has to her place returned! Our witches are no longer old And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, But young and gay and laughing creatures, With the heart’s sunshine on their features; Their sorcery—the light which dances Where the raised lid imveils its glances; Or that low-breathed and gentle tone,
 * The music of Love’s twilight hours,

Soft, dream-like, as a fairy’s moan
 * Above her nightly closing flowers,

Sweeter than that which sighed of yore Along the charmed Ausonian shore! Even she, our own weird heroine, Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,
 * Sleeps calmly where the living laid her;

And the wide realm of sorcery, Left by its latest mistress free,
 * Hath found no gray and skilled invader.

So perished Albion’s “glammarye,”
 * With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping,

His charmëd torch beside his knee, That even the dead himself might see
 * The magic scroll within his keeping.

And now our modern Yankee sees Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries; And naught above, below, around, Of life or death, of sight or sound,
 * Whate’er its nature, form, or look,

Excites his terror or surprise,— All seeming to his knowing eyes Familiar as his “catechise,”
 * Or “Webster’s Spelling-Book.”