"God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep,
But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit!
And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,
Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit,

And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap!"

So said I with clenched hands and passionate pain,
Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side:
Again the loon laughed mocking, and again
The echoes bayed far down the night and died,
While, waking, I recalled my wandering brain.

1861.

THE COURTIN'

God makes sech nights, all white an' still

Fur 'z you can look or listen;

Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,

All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru' the winder;
An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'Ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in-

There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out

Towards the pootiest, bless her,

An' leetle flames danced all about

The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,

An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young

Fetched back from Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',

An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez the apples she was peelin'.

1861.

5

10

15

20

'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look On sech a blessed cretur;

A dogrose blushin' to a brook

Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A 1,

Clean grit an' human natur'; None couldn't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He 'd sparked it with full twenty gals,

Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells-
All is, he couldn't love 'em.

But long o' her his veins 'ould run

All crinkly like curled maple;

The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;

My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upon it.

45

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!

She seemed to 've gut a new soul, For she felt sartin-sure he 'd come,

Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,

A-raspin' on the scraper,

All ways to once her feelins flew

Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

50

55

60

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk

1848-66.

Ez though she wished him furder,

An' on her apples kep' to work,

Parin' away like murder.

"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"

"Wal-no-I come dasignin""

"To see my Ma? She is sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."

To say why gals acts so or so,

Or don't, 'ould be presumin':
Mebby to mean yes an' say no

Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.

Says he, "I'd better call agin";

Says she, "Think likely, Mister”—

Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An'-wal, he up an' kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,

Huldy sot pale ez ashes,

All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.

Fur she was jes' the quiet kind

Whose naturs never vary,

Like streams that keep a summer mind

Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued

Too tight for all expressin',

Tell mother see how metters stood

An' gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide

Down to the Bay o' Fundy;

An' all I know is they was cried

In meetin' come nex' Sunday.

1848, 1866.

ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD
COMMEMORATION

I

Weak-winged is song,

Nor aims at that clear-ethered height
Whither the brave deed climbs for light:
We seem to do them wrong,

Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse,
Our trivial song to honor those who come
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum,
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire,
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire.
Yet sometimes feathered words are strong
A gracious memory to buoy up and save
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave
Of the unventurous throng.

II

5

ΙΟ

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back

15

Her wisest Scholars, those who understood

The deeper teaching of her mystic tome

And offered their fresh lives to make it good.

No lore of Greece or Rome,

No science peddling with the names of things,
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, .

20

Can lift our life with wings

Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits,

And lengthen out our dates

With that clear fame whose memory sings

25

In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates:

Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!

Not such the trumpet-call

Of thy diviner mood,

That could thy sons entice

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest

Of those half-virtues which the world calls best,

Into War's tumult rude;

But rather far that stern device

30

The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood

In the dim, unventured wood,

The VERITAS that lurks beneath

The letter's unprolific sheath,

Life of whate'er makes life worth living,

Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food,

35

One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.

40

III

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil

Amid the dust of books to find her,

Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,

With the cast mantle she hath left behind her;
Many in sad faith sought for her,

45

Those love her best who to themselves are true,

And what they dare to dream of dare to do:

55

And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.

65

IV

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides
Into the silent hollow of the past;

What is there that abides

To make the next age better for the last?

Is earth too poor to give us

70

Something to live for here that shall outlive us?

Some more substantial boon