They heard the air above them fanned,
A light step on the sward,
And lo! they saw before them stand
The angel of the Lord!
"Arise," he said, "why look behind,
When hope is all before,
And patient hand and willing mind,
Your loss may yet restore
"I leave with you a spell whose power Can make the desert glad,
And call around you fruit and flower
As fair as Eden had.
"I clothe your hands with power to lift
The curse from off your soil;
Your very doom shall seem a gift,
Your loss a gain through Toil.
Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees,
To labor as to play."
White glimmering over Eden's trees
The angel passed away.
The pilgrims of the world went forth
Obedient to the word,
And found where'er they tilled the earth
A garden of the Lord!
The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit
And blushed with plum and pear; And seeded grass and trodden root Grew sweet beneath their care.
We share our primal parents' fate,
And in our turn and day,
Look back on Eden's sworded gate
As sad and lost as they.
But still for us his native skies
The pitying Angel leaves,
And leads through Toil to Paradise
New Adams and new Eves!
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 so, Father! Let thy will be done-
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.
Oh! 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 threshing-floor, Flailed by thy thunder, heaped with chaffless grain!
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 blue-bird 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!
You scarcely need my tardy thanks,
Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend—
green leaf on your own Green Banks-
The 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.
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
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.
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