TO J. F. CLARKE.

Who asks no meed of earthly fame,

Who knows no earthly master's call,

Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame
Still answering, "God is over all;"

Who makes another's grief his own,

Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; Where lives the saint, if such be known? such an one is here!

Speak softly,

O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne
The heat and burden of the day;

Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn,
The sun still shows thine onward way.

To thee our fragrant love we bring,
In buds that April half displays,
Sweet first-born angels of the spring,
Caught in their opening hymn of praise.

What though our faltering accents fail,

Our captives know their message well, Our words unbreathed their lips exhale,

And sigh more love than ours can tell.

April 4, 1860.

223

THE GRAY CHIEF.

FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY,

1859.

'TIS sweet to fight our battles o'er,

And crown with honest praise

The

gray old chief, who strikes no more The blow of better days.

Before the true and trusted sage

With willing hearts we bend,

When

years have touched with hallowing age Our Master, Guide, and Friend.

For all his manhood's labor past,

For love and faith long tried,

His age is honored to the last,

Though strength and will have died.

THE GRAY CHIEF.

But when, untamed by toil and strife,
Full in our front he stands,

The torch of light, the shield of life,

Still lifted in his hands,

No temple, though its walls resound
With bursts of ringing cheers,
Can hold the honors that surround
His manhood's twice-told years!

10*

225

THE LAST LOOK.

W. W. SWAIN.

BEHOLD - not him we knew!

This was the prison which his soul looked through,

Tender, and brave, and true.

His voice no more is heard;

And his dead name

that dear familiar word

Lies on our lips unstirred.

He spake with poet's tongue;

Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung:
He shall not die unsung!

Grief tried his love, and pain ;

And the long bondage of his martyr-chain

Vexed his sweet soul, - in vain!

THE LAST LOOK.

It felt life's surges break,

As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake,
Smiling while tempests wake.

How can we sorrow more?

Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before

To that untrodden shore!

Lo, through its leafy screen,

A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green,

Untrodden, half unseen!

Here let his body rest,

Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best

May slide above his breast.

Smooth his uncurtained bed;

And if some natural tears are softly shed,

It is not for the dead.

Fold the green turf aright

For the long hours before the morning's light,
And say the last Good Night!

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