THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN.

I.

stretched hands

Plead with the leaden heavens in vain,

I see, beyond the valley lands,

The sea's long level dim with rain. Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone,

With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone.

II.

Along the river's summer walk,
The withered tufts of asters nod;
And trembles on its arid stalk

The hoar plume of the golden-rod.
And on a ground of sombre fir,
And azure-studded juniper,
The silver birch its buds of purple shows,
And scarlet berries tell where bloomed
the sweet wild-rose !

III.

With mingled sound of horns and bells, A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells,

Like a great arrow through the sky, Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun; While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay

Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay.

IV.

I passed this way a year ago:

The wind blew south; the noon of day

Was warm as June's; and save that

snow

Flecked the low mountains far away,

wind at play.

Will still, as He hath done, incline His gracious care to me and mine; Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar,

And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star!

XXVII.

I have not seen, I may not see,

211

"God wills it: here our rest shall be,
Our years of wandering o'er,
For us the Mayflower of the sea
Shall spread her sails no more."

O sacred flowers of faith and hope,
As sweetly now as then
Ye bloom on many a birchen slope,
In many a pine-dark glen.

act,
But God will give the victory

In due time; in that faith I act.
And he who sees the future sure,
The baffling present may endure,
And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand

that leads

The heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds.

XXVIII.

And thou, my song, I send thee forth, Where harsher songs of mine have flown ;

Go, find a place at home and hearth

Where'er thy singer's name is known; Revive for him the kindly thought Of friends; and they who love him not, Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may take

The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake.

THE MAYFLOWERS.

The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter.

SAD Mayflower! watched by winter stars,
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars,
And leaves of frozen sails!

What had she in those dreary hours,

Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May?

Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said,

Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, "Behold our Mayflower here!"

Unchanged, your leaves unfold, Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old.

So live the fathers in their sons,
Their sturdy faith be ours,
And ours the love that overruns

Its rocky strength with flowers.

The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day
Its shadow round us draws;
The Mayflower of his stormy bay,

Our Freedom's struggling cause.

But warmer suns erelong shall bring
To life the frozen sod;

And, through dead leaves of hope, shall spring

Afresh the flowers of God!

BURIAL OF BARBOUR.

BEAR him, comrades, to his grave; Never over one more brave

Shall the prairie grasses weep, In the ages yet to come, When the millions in our room, What we sow in tears, shall reap. ·

Bear him up the icy hill,
With the Kansas, frozen still

As his noble heart, below,
And the land he came to till
With a freeman's thews and will,
And his poor hut roofed with snow!

One more look of that dead face,
Of his murder's ghastly trace!

One more kiss, O widowed one!
Lay your left hands on his brow,
Lift your right hands up, and vow

That his work shall yet be done.

Patience, friends! The eye of God Every path by Murder trod

Watches, lidless, day and night; And the dead man in his shroud, And his widow weeping loud,

And our hearts, are in his sight.

Every deadly threat that swells
With the roar of gambling hells,
Every brutal jest and jeer,
Every wicked thought and plan
Of the cruel heart of man,
Though but whispered, He can hear!

We in suffering, they in crime,
Wait the just award of time,

Wait the vengeance that is due ;
Not in vain a heart shall break,
Not a tear for Freedom's sake

Fall unheeded: God is true.

While the flag with stars bedecked
Threatens where it should protect,
And the Law shakes hands with
Crime,

What is left us but to wait,
Match our patience to our fate,

And abide the better time?

Patience, friends! The human heart Everywhere shall take our part,

Everywhere for us shall pray; On our side are nature's laws, And God's life is in the cause That we suffer for to-day.

Well to suffer is divine;
Pass the watchword down the line,
Pass the countersign: "ENDURE."
Not to him who rashly dares,
But to him who nobly bears,

Is the victor's garland sure.

Frozen earth to frozen breast,
Lay our slain one down to rest;
Lay him down in hope and faith,
And above the broken sod,
Once again, to Freedom's God,

Pledge ourselves for life or death,

That the State whose walls we lay, In our blood and tears, to-day,

Shall be free from bonds of shame And our goodly land untrod By the feet of Slavery, shod

With cursing as with flame!

Plant the Buckeye on his grave,
For the hunter of the slave

In its shadow cannot rest; And let martyr mound and tree Be our pledge and guaranty Of the freedom of the West!

TO PENNSYLVANIA.

O STATE prayer-founded! never hung Such choice upon a people's tongue,

Such power to bless or ban,. As that which makes thy whisper Fate, For which on thee the centuries wait, And destinies of man!

Across thy Alleghanian chain,
With groanings from a land in pain,
The west-wind finds its way:
Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood
The crying of thy children's blood
Is in thy ears to-day!

And unto thee in Freedom's hour Of sorest need God gives the power To ruin or to save;

To wound or heal, to blight or bless With fertile field or wilderness,

A free home or a grave!

Then let thy virtue match the crime,
Rise to a level with the time;

And, if a son of thine
Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like
For Fatherland and Freedom strike
As Justice gives the sign.

Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease,
The great occasion's forelock seize ;

And, let the north-wind strong, And golden leaves of autumn, be Thy coronal of Victory

And thy triumphal song. 10th mo., 1856.

THE PASS OF THE SIERRA.

ALL night above their rocky bed They saw the stars march slow; The wild Sierra overhead,

The desert's death below.

The Indian from his lodge of bark, The gray bear from his den, Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark, Glared on the mountain men.