WHAT OF THE DAY?

A SOUND of tumult troubles all the air,
Like the low thunders of a sultry sky
Far-rolling ere the downright lightnings glare;
The hills blaze red with warnings; foes draw
`nigh,

Treading the dark with challenge and reply.
Behold the burden of the prophet's vision,-
The gathering hosts,-the Valley of Decision,
Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling o'er.
Day of the Lord, of darkness and not light!
It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind's roar!
Even Father! Let Thy will be done,-
So,
Turn and o'erturn, end what Thou hast begun
In judgment or in mercy: as for me,
If but the least and frailest, let me be
Evermore numbered with the truly free
Who find Thy service perfect liberty!

I fain would thank Thee that my mortal life

Has reached the hour (albeit through care and pain)

When Good and Evil, as for final strife,

Close dim and vast on Armageddon's plain; And Michael and his angels once again

Drive howling back the Spirits of the Night. O for the faith to read the signs aright And, from the angle of thy perfect sight,

See Truth's white banner floating on before; And the Good Cause, despite of venal friends, And base expedients, move to noble ends;

See Peace with Freedom make to Time amends,

And, through its cloud of dust, the threshingfloor,

Flailed by the thunder, heaped with chaffless grain!

1857.

THE FIRST FLOWERS.

FOR ages on our river borders,

These tassels in their tawny bloom,
And willowy studs of downy silver,
Have prophesied of Spring to come.

For ages have the unbound waters
Smiled on them from their pebbly hem,
And the clear carol of the robin

And song of bluebird welcomed them.

But never yet from smiling river,

Or song of early bird, have they Been greeted with a gladder welcome

Than whispers from my heart to-day.

They break the spell of cold and darkness,
The weary watch of sleepless pain;
And from my heart, as from the river,
The ice of winter melts again.

Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood token
Of Freya's footsteps drawing near;
Almost, as in the rune of Asgard,
The growing of the grass I hear.

It is as if the pine-trees called me

From ceiled room and silent books, To see the dance of woodland shadows, And hear the song of April brooks!

As in the old Teutonic ballad

Live singing bird and flowering tree, Together live in bloom and music,

I blend in song thy flowers and thee.

Earth's rocky tablets bear forever

The dint of rain and small bird's track:

Who knows but that my idle verses

May leave some trace by Merrimack ! The bird that trod the mellow layers

Of the young earth is sought in vain; The cloud is gone that wove the sandstone, From God's design, with threads of rain! So, when this fluid age we live in

Shall stiffen round my careless rhyme,
Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzle
The savans of the coming time:

And, following out their dim suggestions,
Some idly-curious hand may draw
My doubtful portraiture, as cuvier
Drew fish and bird from fin and claw.
And maidens in the far-off twilights,
Singing my words to breeze and stream,
Shall wonder if the old-time Mary
Were real, or the rhymer's dream!
1st 3d mo., 1857.

MY NAMESAKE.

You scarcely need my tardy thanks, Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tendA green leaf on your own Green BanksThe 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.

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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.

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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.

"Ill served his tides of feeling strong To turn the common mills of use; And, over restless wings of song,

His birthright garb hung loose!

"His eye was beauty's powerless slave,
And his the ear which discord pains:
Few guessed beneath his aspect grave
What passions strove in chains.

"He had his share of care and pain,
No holiday was life to him;
Still in the heirloom cup we drain
The bitter drop will swim.

"But still his heart was full of awe

And reverence for all sacred things; And, brooding over form and law, He saw the Spirit's wings!

"Life's mystery wrapt him like a cloud;
He heard far voices mock his own,
The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,
Long roll of waves unknown.

"The arrows of his straining sight

Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage, Like lost guides calling left and right, Perplexed his doubtful age.

"Like childhood, listening for the sound
Of its dropped pebbles in the well,
All vainly down the dark profound
His brief-lined plummet fell.

"So, scattering flowers with pious pains
On old beliefs, of later creeds,
Which claimed a place in Truth's domains,
He asked the title-deeds.

"He saw the old-time's groves and shrines
In the long distance fair and dim;
And heard, like sound of far-off pines,
The century-mellowed hymn!

"He dared not mock the Dervish whirl,

The Brahmin's rite, the Lama's spell; God knew the heart; Devotion's pearl Might sanctify the shell.

"While others trod the altar stairs

He faltered like the publican; And, while they praised as saints, his prayers Were those of sinful man.

"For, awed by Sinai's Mount of Law,

The trembling faith alone sufficed,
That, through its cloud and flame, he saw
The sweet, sad face of Christ!-

"And listening, with his forehead bowed,
Heard the Divine compassion fill
The pauses of the trump and cloud
With whispers small and still.

"The words he spake, the thoughts he penned,
Are mortal as his hand and brain,
But, if they served the Master's end,
He has not lived in vain !"

Heaven make thee better than thy name,
Child of my friends!-For thee I crave
What riches never bought, nor fame
To mortal longing gave.

I pray the prayer of Plato old: God make thee beautiful within, And let thine eyes the good behold In everything save sin!

Imagination held in check

To serve, not rule, thy poiséd mind; Thy Reason, at the frown or beck Of Conscience, loose or bind.

No dreamer thou, but real all, —
Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth;
Life made by duty epical

And rhythmic with the truth.

So shall that life the fruitage yield
Which trees of healing only give,
And green-leafed in the Eternal field
Of God, forever live

THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.

IT was the pleasant harvest time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,
And the old swallow-haunted barns-
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Tarough which the moted sunlight streams,

And winds blow freshly in, to shake

The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks-
Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.

On Esek Harden's oaken floor,

With many an autumn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.
And thither came young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.

They took their places; some by chance,
And others by a merry voice
Or sweet smile guided to their choice.

How pleasantly the rising moon,

Between the shadow of the mows,

Looked on them through the great elmboughs!

On sturdy boyhood sun-embrowned,
On girlhood with its solid curves

Of healthful strength and painless nerves!

And jests went round, and laughs that made
The house-dog answer with his howl,
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;

And quaint old songs their fathers sung,
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors,
Ere Norman William trod their shores;
And tales, whose merry license shook
The fat sides of the Saxon thane,
Forgetful of the hovering Dane!

But still the sweetest voice was mute
That river-valley ever heard
From lip of maid or throat of bird;

For Mabel Martin sat apart,

And let the hay-mow's shadow fall
Upon the loveliest face of all.

She sat apart, as one forbid,

Who knew that none would condescend To own the Witch-wife's child a friend.

The seasons scarce had gone their round,
Since curious thousands thronged to see
Her mother on the gallows-tree;

And mocked the palsied limbs of age,
That faltered on the fatal stairs,
And wan lip trembling with its prayers!

Few questioned of the sorrowing child,
Or, when they saw the mother die,
Dreamed of the daughter's agony.

They went up to their homes that day,
As men and Christians justified:
God willed it, and the wretch had died!

Dear God and Father of us all,

Forgive our faith in cruel lies,-
Forgive the blindness that denies !
Forgive Thy creature when he takes,
For the all-perfect love Thou art,
Some grim creation of his heart.
Cast down our idols, overturn
Our bloody altars; let us see
Thyself in thy humanity!
Poor Mabel from her mother's grave
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,
And wrestled with her fate alone;
With love, and anger, and despair,

The phantoms of disordered sense,
The awful doubts of Providence!

The school-boys jeered her as they passed, And, when she sought the house of prayer, Her mother's curse pursued her there.

And still o'er many a neighboring door

She saw the horseshoe's curvéd charm, To guard against her mother's harm;-

That mother, poor, and sick, and lame,
Who daily, by the old arm-chair,
Folded her withered hands in prayer;-

Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail,
Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er,
When her dim eyes could read no more!

Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept
Her faith, and trusted that her way,
So dark, would somewhere meet the day.

And still her weary wheel went round
Day after day, with no relief;
Small leisure have the poor for grief.

So in the shadow Mable sits;

Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, Her smile is sadder than her tears.

But cruel eyes have found her out,
And cruel lips repeat her name,

And taunt her with her mother's shame.

She answered not with railing words, But drew her apron o'er her face, And, sobbing, glided from the place.

And only pausing at the door,

Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze Of one who, in her better days,

Had been her warm and steady friend, Ere yet her mother's doom had made Even Esek Harden half afraid.

He felt that mute appeal of tears,

And, starting, with an angry frown Hushed all the wicked murmurs down.

"Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, "This passes harmless mirth or jest; I brook no insult to my guest.

"She is indeed her mother's child; But God's sweet pity ministers Unto no whiter soul than hers.

"Let Goody Martin rest in peace; I never knew her harm a fly, And witch or not, God knows,-not I.

"I know who swore her life away; And, as God lives, I'd not condemn An Indian dog on word of them."

The broadest lands in all the town,

The skill to guide, the power to awe, Were Harden's; and his word was law.

None dared withstand him to his face,
But one sly maiden spake aside :
"The little witch is evil-eyed!

"Her mother only killed a cow,

Or witched a churn or dairy-pan;
But she, forsooth, must charm a man!"

Poor Mabel, in her lonely home,

Sat by the window's narrow pane,
White in the moonlight's silver rain.

The river, on its pebbled rim,

Made music such as childhood knew;
The door-yard tree was whispered through

By voices such as childhood's ear
Had heard in moonlights long ago;
And through the willow-boughs below

She saw the rippled waters shine;
Beyond, in waves of shade and light
The hills rolled off into the night.

Sweet sounds and pictures mocking so
The sadness of her human lot,
She saw and heard, but heeded not.
She strove to drown her sense of wrong,
And, in her old and simple way,
To teach her bitter heart to pray.

Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith,
Grew to a low, despairing cry
Of utter misery: Let me die!

"Oh! take me from the scornful eyes,
And hide me where the cruel speech
And mocking finger may not reach!
"I dare not breathe my mother's name:
A daughter's right I dare not crave
To weep above her unblest grave!
"Let me not live until my heart,
With few to pity, and with none
To love me, hardens into stone.

"O God! have mercy on thy child,
Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small,
And take me ere I lose it all!"

A shadow on the moonlight fell,

And murmuring wind and wave became A voice whose burden was her name.

Had then God heard her? Had he sent His angel down? In flesh and blood, Before her Esek Harden stood !

He laid his hand upon her arm:

Dear Mabel, this no more shall be; Who scoffs at you, must scoff at me.

"You know rough Esek Harden well; And if he seems no suitor gay, And if his hair is touched with gray,

"The maiden grown shall never find

His heart less warm than when she smiled, Upon his knees, a little child!"

Her tears of grief were tears of joy, As, folded in his strong embrace, She looked in Esek Harden's face.

"O truest friend of all!" she said,

"God bless you for your kindly thought, And make me worthy of my lot!"

He led her through his dewy fields,

To where the swinging lanterns glowed, And through the doors the huskers showed.

"Good friends and neighbors!" Esek said, "I'm weary of this lonely life; In Mabel see my chosen wife! "She greets you kindly, one and all; The past is past, and all offence Falls harmless from her innocence. "Henceforth she stands no more alone; You know what Esek Harden is :He brooks no wrong to him or his."

Now let the merriest tales be told,

And let the sweetest songs be sung
That ever made the old heart young!

For now the lost has found a home;

And a lone hearth shall brighter burn,
As all the household joys return!

O, pleasantly the harvest-moon,
Between the shadow of the mows,

Looked on them through the great elm-boughs!

On Mabel's curls of golden hair,

On Esek's shaggy strength it fell;
And the wind whispered, "It is well!"

THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.

FROM the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span

Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann.

Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down,

And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing-town.

Long has passed the summer morning, and its memory waxes old,

When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled.

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Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool,

And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul !

With the memory of that morning by the summer sea I blend

A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned,

In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strange and marvellous things,

Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings.

Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old,

Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and cold;

Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay,

Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray.

The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din

Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in;

And the lore of home and fireside, and the legen

On his slow round walked the sentry, south and eastward looking forth

O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers stretching north,

Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, with bush and tree,

Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty sea.

Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying brands,

Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands;

On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared,

And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard.