Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/425

Rh To thy full thoughts, gay or sad, Sunny-hued or sober clad, Something of my own I add;

Well assured that thou wilt take Even the offering which I make Kindly for the giver’s sake.

scarcely need my tardy thanks,
 * Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend—

A green leaf on your own Green Banks—
 * The memory of your friend.

For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides
 * The sobered brow and lessening hair:

For aught I know, the myrtled sides
 * Of Helicon are bare.

Their scallop-shells so many bring
 * The fabled founts of song to try,

They ’ve drained, for aught I know, the spring
 * Of Aganippe dry.

Ah well!—The wreath the Muses braid
 * Proves often Folly’s cap and bell;

Methinks, my ample beaver’s shade
 * May serve my turn as well.

Let Love’s and Friendship’s tender debt
 * Be paid by those I love in life.

Why should the unborn critic whet
 * For me his scalping-knife?

Why should the stranger peer and pry
 * One’s vacant house of life about,

And drag for curious ear and eye
 * His faults and follies out?—

Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon,
 * With chaff of words, the garb he wore,

As corn-husks when the ear is gone
 * Are rustled all the more?

Let kindly Silence close again,
 * The picture vanish from the eye,

And on the dim and misty main
 * Let the small ripple die.

Yet not the less I own your claim
 * To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine.

Hang, if it please you so, my name
 * Upon your household line.

Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide
 * Her chosen names, I envy none:

A mother’s love, a father’s pride,
 * Shall keep alive my own!

Still shall that name as now recall
 * The young leaf wet with morning dew,

The glory where the sunbeams fall
 * The breezy woodlands through.

That name shall be a household word,
 * A spell to waken smile or sigh;

In many an evening prayer be heard
 * And cradle lullaby.

And thou, dear child, in riper days
 * When asked the reason of thy name,

Shalt answer: “One ’t were vain to praise
 * Or censure bore the same.

“Some blamed him, some believed him good,
 * The truth lay doubtless ’twixt the two;

He reconciled as best he could
 * Old faith and fancies new.

“In him the grave and playful mixed,
 * And wisdom held with folly truce,

And Nature compromised betwixt
 * Good fellow and recluse.

“He loved his friends, forgave his foes;
 * And, if his words were harsh at times,

He spared his fellow-men,—his blows
 * Fell only on their crimes.

“He loved the good and wise, but found
 * His human heart to all akin

Who met him on the common ground
 * Of suffering and of sin.

“Whate’er his neighbors might endure
 * Of pain or grief his own became;

For all the ills he could not cure
 * He held himself to blame.

“His good was mainly an intent,
 * His evil not of forethought done;

The work he wrought was rarely meant
 * Or finished as begun.