Write on your doors the saying wise and old,

100

'Be bold! be bold !' and everywhere, 'Be bold;

Be not too bold!' Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.

And now, my classmates; ye remaining few
That number not the half of those we knew,
Ye, against whose familiar names not yet
The fatal asterisk of death is set,
Ye I salute! The horologe of Time
Strikes the half-century with a solemn
chime,

And summons us together once again,
The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.

Where are the others? Voices from the deep

Caverns of darkness answer me: 'They sleep!'

I name no names; instinctively I feel Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel,

And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss,

For every heart best knoweth its own loss. I see their scattered gravestones gleaming

Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well,

Whereon the shadow of the finger fell; And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found

A secret stairway leading underground.
Down this he passed into a spacious hall, 190
Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;
And opposite, in threatening attitude,
With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood.
Upon its forehead, like a coronet,
Were these mysterious words of menace
set:

That which I am, I am; my fatal aim None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!'

What then? Shall we sit idly down and say

The night hath come; it is no longer day? The night hath not yet come; we are not quite

Cut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Edipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn, 280
But other something, would we but begin;
For age
is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

IN THE CHURCHYARD AT TARRYTOWN1

HERE lies the gentle humorist, who died
In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
A simple stone, with but a date and name,
Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
Here in the autumn of his days he came,
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
With tints that brightened and were multi-
plied.

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

O YE dead Poets, who are living still
Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
With drops of anguish falling fast and
red

From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,

Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
Have something in them so divinely sweet,
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
(1878.)

1876.

THREE Silences there are: the first of speech,

The second of desire, the third of thought; This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.

These Silences, commingling each with each,

Made up the perfect Silence that he sought And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught

Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.

O thou, whose daily life anticipates
The life to come, and in whose thought and
word

The spiritual world preponderates,
Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!
(1878.)

1877.

WAPENTAKE &

TO ALFRED TENNYSON

POET! I come to touch thy lance with mine; Not as a knight, who on the listed field

2 Written for Whittier's seventieth birthday.

3 When any came to take the government of the Hundred or Wapentake in a day and place appointed, as they were accustomed to meete, all the better sort met him with lances, and he alighting from his horse, all rise up to him, and he setting or holding his lance upright, all the rest come with their lances, according to the auncient custome in confirming league and publike peace and obedience, and touch his lance or weapon, and thereof called Wapentake, for the Saxon or