Apples of Hesperides!
Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

O, for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread,Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch: pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Loose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil :
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in

FLOWERS IN WINTER.

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

FLOWERS IN WINTER.

PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE.

How strange to greet, this frosty morn,
In graceful counterfeit of flowers,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains
The pictures of its flower-sown home-
The lights and shades, the purple stains,
And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring

To the dark season's frost and rime
This painted memory of spring,
This dream of summer time.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
Our fancy's age renews its youth,
And dim-remembered fictions take
The guise of present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimack—
So old ancestral legends say—
Could call green leaf and blossom back
To frosted stem and spray.

The dry logs of the cottage wall,

Beneath his touch, put out their leaves; The clay-bound swallow, at his call,

Played round the icy eaves.

233

The settler saw his oaken flail

Take bud, and bloom before his eyes; From frozen pools he saw the pale, Sweet summer lilies rise.

To their old homes, by man profaned,
Came the sad dryads, exiled long,
And through their leafy tongues complained
Of household use and wrong.

The beechen platter sprouted wild,
The pipkin wore its old-time green;
The cradle o'er the sleeping child
Became a leafy screen.

Haply our gentle friend hath met,
While wandering in her sylvan quest,
Haunting his native woodlands yet,
That Druid of the West;—

And, while the dew on leaf and flower
Glistened in moonlight clear and still,
Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power,
And caught his trick of skill.

But welcome, be it new or old,

The gift which makes the day more bright, And paints upon the ground of cold And darkness, warmth and light!

Without is neither gold nor green;
Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;
Yet, summer-like, we sit between
The autumn and the spring.

The one, with bridal blush of rose,

And sweetest breath of woodland balm,

And one whose matron lips unclose
In smiles of saintly calm.

THE RENDITION.

Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!
The sweet azalia's oaken dells,
And hide the bank where roses blow,
And swing the azure bells!

O'erlay the amber violet's leaves,
The purple aster's brookside home,
Guard all the flowers her pencil gives
A life beyond their bloom.

And she, when spring comes round again,
By greening slope and singing flood
Shall wander, seeking, not in vain,
Her darlings of the wood.

235

THE RENDITION.

I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,
I saw an earnest look beseech,

And rather by that look than speech

My neighbor told me all.

And, as I thought of Liberty

Marched hand-cuffed down that sworded street,

The solid earth beneath my feet

Reeled fluid as the sea.

I felt a sense of bitter loss—

Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,
And loathing fear, as if my path

A serpent stretched across.

All love of home, all pride of place,
All generous confidence and trust,
Sank smothering in that deep disgust
And anguish of disgrace.

Down on my native hills of June,
And home's green quiet, hiding all,
Fell sudden darkness like the fall
Of midnight upon noon !

And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God

The blasphemy of wrong.

"O, Mother, from thy memories proud,
Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth,
Lend this dead air a breeze of health,
And smite with stars this cloud.

"Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,
Rise awful in thy strength," I said;
Ah, me! I spake but to the dead;
I stood upon her grave!

Sixth month, 1854.

LINES,

ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL TO PROTECT THE RIGHT: AND LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.

I SAID I stood upon thy grave,

My Mother State, when last the moon
Of blossoms clomb the skies of June.

And, scattering ashes on my head,
I wore, undreaming of relief,
The sackcloth of thy shame and grief.

Again that moon of blossoms shines

On leaf and flower and folded wing,
And thou hast risen with the spring!