Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, December 3, 1879. His laurels fresh from song and lay, Romance, art, science, rich in all, And young of heart, how dare we say We keep his seventieth festival? No sense is here of loss or lack; Before […]

I. “And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?” My sister asked our guest one winter’s day. Smiling he answered in the Friends’ sweet way Common to both: “Wherever thou shall send! What wouldst thou have me see for thee?” She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire’s glow “Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and […]

As a guest who may not stay Long and sad farewells to say Glides with smiling face away, Of the sweetness and the zest Of thy happy life possessed Thou hast left us at thy best. Warm of heart and clear of brain, Of thy sun-bright spirit’s wane Thou hast spared us all the pain. […]

L. M. C. I have more fully expressed my admiration and regard for Lydia Maria Child in the biographical introduction which I wrote for the volume of Letters, published after her death. We sat together, last May-day, and talked Of the dear friends who walked Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears Of five […]

LONGFELLOW. WITH a glory of winter sunshine Over his locks of gray, In the old historic mansion He sat on his last birthday; With his books and his pleasant pictures, And his household and his kin, While a sound as of myriads singing From far and near stole in. It came from his own fair […]

Read at the Massachusetts Club on the seventieth anniversary the birthday of Vice-President Wilson, February 16, 1882. The lowliest born of all the land, He wrung from Fate’s reluctant hand The gifts which happier boyhood claims; And, tasting on a thankless soil The bitter bread of unpaid toil, He fed his soul with noble aims. […]

GEORGE FULLER Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth Who sang Saint Agnes’ Eve! How passing fair Her shapes took color in thy homestead air! How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth! Magician! who from commonest elements Called up divine ideals, clothed upon By mystic lights soft blending into one Womanly grace and […]

Take our hands, James Russell Lowell, Our hearts are all thy own; To-day we bid thee welcome Not for ourselves alone. In the long years of thy absence Some of us have grown old, And some have passed the portals Of the Mystery untold; For the hands that cannot clasp thee, For the voices that […]

Author of The Nation and The Republic of God. Unnoted as the setting of a star He passed; and sect and party scarcely knew When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew To fitter audience, where the great dead are In God’s republic of the heart and mind, Leaving no purer, nobler soul behind. […]

Luck to the craft that bears this name of mine, Good fortune follow with her golden spoon The glazed hat and tarry pantaloon; And wheresoe’er her keel shall cut the brine, Cod, hake and haddock quarrel for her line. Shipped with her crew, whatever wind may blow, Or tides delay, my wish with her shall […]

Suggested by Mrs. Stowe’s tale of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and written when the characters in the tale were realities by the fireside of countless American homes. Dry the tears for holy Eva, With the blessed angels leave her; Of the form so soft and fair Give to earth the tender care. For the golden locks […]

GREYSTONE, AUG. 4, 1886. Once more, O all-adjusting Death! The nation’s Pantheon opens wide; Once more a common sorrow saith A strong, wise man has died. Faults doubtless had he. Had we not Our own, to question and asperse The worth we doubted or forgot Until beside his hearse? Ambitious, cautious, yet the man To […]

Written for the Essex County Agricultural Fair, and sung at the banquet at Newburyport, October 2, 1856. One morning of the first sad Fall, Poor Adam and his bride Sat in the shade of Eden’s wall– But on the outer side. She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit For the chaste garb of old; He, sighing […]

For the Agricultural and Horticultural Exhibition at Amesbury and Salisbury, September 28, 1858. This day, two hundred years ago, The wild grape by the river’s side, And tasteless groundnut trailing low, The table of the woods supplied. Unknown the apple’s red and gold, The blushing tint of peach and pear; The mirror of the Powow […]

This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the “Great Pond” the writer’s boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian language signifying Pickerel) was read. As Adam did […]

The Persian’s flowery gifts, the shrine Of fruitful Ceres, charm no more; The woven wreaths of oak and pine Are dust along the Isthmian shore. But beauty hath its homage still, And nature holds us still in debt; And woman’s grace and household skill, And manhood’s toil, are honored yet. And we, to-day, amidst our […]

Read at the Friends’ School Anniversary, Providence, R. I., 6th mo., 1860. From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine, Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again; And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool, Play over the old game of going to school. All your strifes and vexations, your whims […]

FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT “THE LAURELS” ON THE MERRIMAC. Jean Pierre Brissot, the famous leader of the Girondist party in the French Revolution, when a young man travelled extensively in the United States. He visited the valley of the Merrimac, and speaks in terms of admiration of the view from Moulton’s hill opposite Amesbury. […]

Read at “The Laurels,” on the Merrimac, 6th month, 1865. The roll of drums and the bugle’s wailing Vex the air of our vales-no more; The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning, The share is the sword the soldier wore! Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river, Under thy banks of laurel bloom; Softly […]

At the twentieth and last anniversary. FROM these wild rocks I look to-day O’er leagues of dancing waves, and see The far, low coast-line stretch away To where our river meets the sea. The light wind blowing off the land Is burdened with old voices; through Shut eyes I see how lip and hand The […]