Young brothers of the ancient guild, Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone Now shape the sole ! now deftly curl And bless the while the bright-eyed girl For you, along the Spanish main For you, upon the oak's gray bark, The woodman's axe is smiting. 20 30 40 Free hands and hearts are still your pride, In our North-land, wild and woody, or the beginning of 'The Drovers : '- Through heat and cold, and shower and sun, There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving. See also the beautiful Dedication' of the Songs of Labor, p. 282. THE PINE TREE1 Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay Has she none to break the silence? Has State's rusted shield, O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry, •Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet on Mammon's lie! Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's latest pound, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the heart o' the Bay State sound !' Where's the man for Massachusetts ? Where's the voice to speak her free? Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? 1 Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846. (WHITTIER.) Whittier sent the poem to Sumner in a letter in which he said: 'I have just read the proceedings of your Whig convention, and the lines enclosed are a feeble expression of my feelings. I look upon the rejection of Stephen C. Phillips's resolutions as an evidence that the end and aim of the managers of the convention was to go just far enough to scare the party and no farther. All thanks for the free voices of thyself, Phillips, Allen, and Adams. Notwithstanding the result you have not spoken in vain.' (Quoted in Pickard's Life, vol. i, p. 316.) she none to do and dare? O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field! * Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. 'I find more satisfaction,' said Barclay, as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor.' (WHITTIER.) With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead; But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled; Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child? All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied; With her kiss upon his forehead, 'Mother!' murmured he, and died! But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food. Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air! THE HUSKERS 1847 Ir was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again; The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow-flowers of May. |