O dwellers in the stately towns, What come ye out to see? This common earth, this common sky, This water flowing free? As gayly as these kalmia flowers Your door-yard blossoms spring; As sweetly as these wild-wood birds Your caged minstrels sing. You find but common bloom and green, The rippling river’s rune, The beauty […]

FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING’S HOUSE OF WORSHIP, 1864. The poetic and patriotic preacher, who had won fame in the East, went to California in 1860 and became a power on the Pacific coast. It was not long after the opening of the house of worship built for him that he died. Amidst […]

The giver of the house was the late George Peabody, of London. Thou dwellest not, O Lord of all In temples which thy children raise; Our work to thine is mean and small, And brief to thy eternal days. Forgive the weakness and the pride, If marred thereby our gift may be, For love, at […]

Read at the President’s Levee, Brown University, 29th 6th month, 1870. To-day the plant by Williams set Its summer bloom discloses; The wilding sweethrier of his prayers Is crowned with cultured roses. Once more the Island State repeats The lesson that he taught her, And binds his pearl of charity Upon her brown-locked daughter. Is […]

The great fire at Chicago was on 8-10 October, 1871. Men said at vespers: “All is well!” In one wild night the city fell; Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain Before the fiery hurricane. On threescore spires had sunset shone, Where ghastly sunrise looked on none. Men clasped each other’s hands, and said […]

Died at the Island of Panay (Philippine group), aged nineteen years. Where ceaseless Spring her garland twines, As sweetly shall the loved one rest, As if beneath the whispering pines And maple shadows of the West. Ye mourn, O hearts of home! for him, But, haply, mourn ye not alone; For him shall far-off eyes […]

Longwood, not far from Bayard Taylor’s birthplace in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, was the home of my esteemed friends John and Hannah Cox, whose golden wedding was celebrated in 1874. With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding vow, The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable now. And, sweet as has […]

All things are Thine: no gift have we, Lord of all gifts, to offer Thee; And hence with grateful hearts to-day, Thy own before Thy feet we lay. Thy will was in the builders’ thought; Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought; Through mortal motive, scheme and plan, Thy wise eternal purpose ran. No lack Thy […]

Sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, November 11, 1875. “Let there be light!” God spake of old, And over chaos dark and cold, And through the dead and formless frame Of nature, life and order came. Faint was the light at first that shone On giant fern and mastodon, On half-formed plant and […]

An incident in St. Augustine, Florida. ‘Neath skies that winter never knew The air was full of light and balm, And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew Through orange bloom and groves of palm. A stranger from the frozen North, Who sought the fount of health in vain, Sank homeless on the alien earth, […]

Written for the opening of the International Exhibition, Philadelphia, May 10, 1876. The music for the hymn was written by John K. Paine, and may be found in The Atlantic Monthly for June, 1876. I. Our fathers’ God! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free, And […]

BOWDOIN STREET, BOSTON, 1877. The end has come, as come it must To all things; in these sweet June days The teacher and the scholar trust Their parting feet to separate ways. They part: but in the years to be Shall pleasant memories cling to each, As shells bear inland from the sea The murmur […]

Sung at the anniversary of the Children’s Mission, Boston, 1878. Thine are all the gifts, O God! Thine the broken bread; Let the naked feet be shod, And the starving fed. Let Thy children, by Thy grace, Give as they abound, Till the poor have breathing-space, And the lost are found. Wiser than the miser’s […]

This poem was read at a meeting of citizens of Boston having for its object the preservation of the Old South Church famous in Colonial and Revolutionary history. I. THROUGH the streets of Marblehead Fast the red-winged terror sped; Blasting, withering, on it came, With its hundred tongues of flame, Where St. Michael’s on its […]

The American Horticultural Society, 1882. O painter of the fruits and flowers, We own wise design, Where these human hands of ours May share work of Thine! Apart from Thee we plant in vain The root and sow the seed; Thy early and Thy later rain, Thy sun and dew we need. Our toil is […]

Read at Harriet Beecher Stowe’s seventieth anniversary, June 14, 1882, at a garden party at ex-Governor Claflin’s in Newtonville, Mass. Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers And golden-fruited orange bowers To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours! To her who, in our evil time, Dragged into light the nation’s crime With strength beyond the […]

Written on the occasion of a voyage made by my friends Annie Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett. Outbound, your bark awaits you. Were I one Whose prayer availeth much, my wish should be Your favoring trade-wind and consenting sea. By sail or steed was never love outrun, And, here or there, love follows her in […]

In reply to a flower gift from Mrs. Putnam’s school at Jamaica Plain. My garden roses long ago Have perished from the leaf-strewn walks; Their pale, fair sisters smile no more Upon the sweet-brier stalks. Gone with the flower-time of my life, Spring’s violets, summer’s blooming pride, And Nature’s winter and my own Stand, flowerless, […]

Read September 10, 1885, to the surviving students of Haverhill Academy in 1827-1830. The gulf of seven and fifty years We stretch our welcoming hands across; The distance but a pebble’s toss Between us and our youth appears. For in life’s school we linger on The remnant of a once full list; Conning our lessons, […]

Norumbega Hall at Wellesley College, named in honor of Eben Norton Horsford, who has been one of the most munificent patrons of that noble institution, and who had just published an essay claiming the discovery of the site of the somewhat mythical city of Norumbega, was opened with appropriate ceremonies, in April, 1886. The following […]