Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/438

406   And poetry, (or good or bad, A single book was all we had,) Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
 * A stranger to the heathen Nine,
 * Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,

The wars of David and the Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvels that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks,
 * And daft McGregor on his raids
 * In Costa Rica’s everglades.

And up Taygetos winding slow Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks, A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow! Welcome to us its week-old news, Its corner for the rustic Muse,
 * Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,

Its record, mingling in a breath The wedding bell and dirge of death: Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, The latest culprit sent to jail; Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, Its vendue sales and goods at cost.
 * And traffic calling loud for gain.

We felt the stir of hall and street, The pulse of life that round us beat; The chill embargo of the snow Was melted in the genial glow; Wide swung again our ice-locked door, And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backward look
 * And folded wings of ashen gray
 * And voice of echoes far away,

The brazen covers of thy book; The weird palimpsest old and vast, Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past; Where, closely mingling, pale and glow The characters of joy and woe; The monographs of outlived years, Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
 * Green hills of life that slope to death,

And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees Shade off to mournful cypresses
 * With the white amaranths underneath.

Even while I look, I can but heed
 * The restless sands’ incessant fall,

Importunate hours that hours succeed, Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
 * And duty keeping pace with all.

Shut down and clasp the heavy lids; I hear again the voice that bids The dreamer leave his dream midway For larger hopes and graver fears: Life greatens in these later years, The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
 * Dreaming in throngful city ways

Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends—the few Who yet remain—shall pause to view
 * These Flemish pictures of old days;

Sit with me by the homestead hearth, And stretch the hands of memory forth
 * To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!

And thanks untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the odors blown From unseen meadows newly mown, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; The traveller owns the grateful sense Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air.

autumn-time has come; On woods that dream of bloom, And over purpling vines, The low sun fainter shines.

The aster-flower is failing, The hazel’s gold is paling; Yet overhead more near The eternal stars appear!

And present gratitude Insures the future’s good, And for the things I see I trust the things to be;

That in the paths untrod, And the long days of God, My feet shall still be led, My heart be comforted.

O living friends who love me! O dear ones gone above me! Careless of other fame, I leave to you my name.