WE will not speak of years to-night,– For what have years to bring But larger floods of love and light, And sweeter songs to sing? We will not drown in wordy praise The kindly thoughts that rise; If Friendship own one tender phrase, He reads it in our eyes. We need not waste our school-boy […]

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 […]

FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859 ‘T is 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, […]

DIED JANUARY 7, 1861 SEXTON! Martha’s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! Her weary hands their labor cease; Good night, poor Martha,–sleep in peace! Toll the bell! Sexton! Martha’s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! For many a year has Martha said, “I’m old and poor,–would I were dead!” […]

HE was all sunshine; in his face The very soul of sweetness shone; Fairest and gentlest of his race; None like him we can call our own. Something there was of one that died In her fresh spring-time long ago, Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, Whose smile it was a bliss to know. Something of […]

FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1857 THE noon of summer sheds its ray On Harvard’s holy ground; The Matron calls, the sons obey, And gather smiling round. CHORUS. Then old and young together stand, The sunshine and the snow, As heart to heart, and hand in hand, We sing before we go! Her hundred opening doors […]

1857 I THANK you, MR. PRESIDENT, you’ve kindly broke the ice; Virtue should always be the first,–I ‘m only SECOND VICE– (A vice is something with a screw that’s made to hold its jaw Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw). Sweet brothers by the Mother’s side, the babes of days […]

JANUARY 25, 1859 His birthday.–Nay, we need not speak The name each heart is beating,– Each glistening eye and flushing cheek In light and flame repeating! We come in one tumultuous tide,– One surge of wild emotion,– As crowding through the Frith of Clyde Rolls in the Western Ocean; As when yon cloudless, quartered moon […]

1860 WHAT makes the Healing Art divine? The bitter drug we buy and sell, The brands that scorch, the blades that shine, The scars we leave, the “cures” we tell? Are these thy glories, holiest Art,– The trophies that adorn thee best,– Or but thy triumph’s meanest part,– Where mortal weakness stands confessed? We take […]

FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE BALL’S STATUE OF WASHINGTON 1630 ALL overgrown with bush and fern, And straggling clumps of tangled trees, With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,– With spongy bogs that drip and fill A yellow pond with muddy rain, Beneath […]

AUGUST 29, 1859 I REMEMBER–why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago? I fear I’m growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know; It must have been in ‘forty–I would say ‘thirty-nine– We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine. He said, “Well now, old fellow, I’m thinking that […]

GOD bless our Fathers’ Land! Keep her in heart and hand One with our own! From all her foes defend, Be her brave People’s Friend, On all her realms descend, Protect her Throne! Father, with loving care Guard Thou her kingdom’s Heir, Guide all his ways Thine arm his shelter be, From him by land […]

A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? Have you met with that dreadful old man? If you have n’t been caught, you will be, you will be; For catch you he must and he can. He does n’t hold on by your throat, by your […]

SHE has gone,–she has left us in passion and pride,– Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! She has torn her own star from our firmament’s glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe! Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, We can never forget that our hearts have been one,– […]

A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER TO H. I. H THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, AT THE REVERE HOUSE, SEPTEMBER 25,1861 THE land of sunshine and of song! Her name your hearts divine; To her the banquet’s vows belong Whose breasts have poured its wine; Our trusty friend, our true ally Through varied change and chance So, […]

1851 THE summer dawn is breaking On Auburn’s tangled bowers, The golden light is waking On Harvard’s ancient towers; The sun is in the sky That must see us do or die, Ere it shine on the line Of the CLASS OF ’29. At last the day is ended, The tutor screws no more, By […]

COME, dear old comrade, you and I Will steal an hour from days gone by, The shining days when life was new, And all was bright with morning dew, The lusty days of long ago, When you were Bill and I was Joe. Your name may flaunt a titled trail Proud as a cockerel’s rainbow […]

Not premeditated 1853 THE clock has struck noon; ere it thrice tell the hours We shall meet round the table that blushes with flowers, And I shall blush deeper with shame-driven blood That I came to the banquet and brought not a bud. Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art If you […]

1852 WHERE, oh where are the visions of morning, Fresh as the dews of our prime? Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, Down the back entry of time. Where, oh where are life’s lilies and roses, Nursed in the golden dawn’s smile? Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, On the old banks of […]

1855 AND what shall be the song to-night, If song there needs must be? If every year that brings us here Must steal an hour from me? Say, shall it ring a merry peal, Or heave a mourning sigh O’er shadows cast, by years long past, On moments flitting by? Nay, take the first unbidden […]