John Greenleaf Whittier
¶[1807-1802]
792 the Eternal Goodness
¶O FRIENDS ! with whom my feet have trodThe quiet aisles of prayer,Glad witness to your zeal for GodAnd love of man I bear.
¶I trace your lines of argument;Your logic linked and strongI weigh as one who dreads dissent,And fears a doubt as wrong.
¶But still my human hands are weakTo hold your iron creeds:Against the words ye bid me speakMy heart within me pleads.
¶Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?Who talks of scheme and plan ?The Lord is God! He needeth notThe poor device of man.
¶I walk with bare, hushed feet the groundYe tread with boldness shod;[1339]I dare not fix with mete and boundThe love and power of God.
¶Ye praise His justice; even suchHis pitying love I deem:Ye seek a king; I fain would touchThe robe that hath no seam.
¶Ye see the curse which overbroodsA world of pain and loss;I hear our Lord's beatitudesAnd prayer upon the cross.
¶More than your schoolmen teach, withinMyself, alas! I know:Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,Too small the merit show.
¶I bow my forehead to the dust,I veil mine eyes for shame,And urge, in trembling self-distrust,A prayer without a claim.
¶I see the wrong that round me lies,I feel the guilt within;I hear, with groan and travail-cries,The world confess its sin.
¶Yet, in the maddening maze of things,And tossed by storm and flood,To one fixed trust my spirit clings;I know that God is good!
¶Not mine to look where cherubimAnd seraphs may not see,But nothing can be good in HimWhich evil is in me.
¶The wrong that pains my soul belowI dare not throne above,I know not of His hate,—I knowHis goodness and His love.[1340]I dimly guess from blessings knownOf greater out of sight,And, with the chastened Psalmist, ownHis judgments too are right.
¶I long for household voices gone,For vanished smiles I long,But God hath led my dear ones on,And He can do no wrong.
¶I know not what the future hathOf marvel or surprise,Assured alone that life and deathHis mercy underlies.
¶And if my heart and flesh are weakTo bear an untried pain,The bruised reed He will not break,But strengthen and sustain.
¶No offering of my own I have,Nor works my faith to prove;I can but give the gifts He gave,And plead His love for love.
¶And so beside the Silent SeaI wait the muffled oar;No harm from Him can come to meOn ocean or on shore.
¶I know not where His islands liftTheir fronded palms in air;I only know I cannot driftBeyond His love and care.
¶O brothers! if my faith is vain,If hopes like these betray,Pray for me that my feet may gainThe sure and safer way.[1341]And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seenThy creatures as they be,Forgive me if too close I leanMy human heart on Thee!
Randolph of Roanoke
¶O MOTHER EARTH! upon thy lap
¶Thy weary ones receiving,And o'er them, silent as a dream,Thy grassy mantle weaving,Fold softly in thy long embraceThat heart so worn and broken,And cool its pulse of fire beneathThy shadows old and oaken.
¶Shut out from him the bitter wordAnd serpent hiss of scorning;Nor let the storms of yesterdayDisturb his quiet morning.Breathe over him forgetfulnessOf all save deeds of kindness,And, save to smiles of grateful eyes,Press down his lids in blindness.
¶There, where with living ear and eyeHe heard Potomac's flowing,And, through his tall ancestral trees,Saw autumn's sunset glowing,He sleeps, still looking to the west,Beneath the dark wood shadow,As if he still would see the sunSink down on wave and meadow.
¶Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himselfAll moods of mind contrasting,—The tenderest wail of human woe,The scorn like lightning blasting;The pathos which from rival eyesUnwilling tears could summon,The stinging taunt, the fiery burstOf hatred scarcely human![1342]Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower,From lips of life-long sadness;Clear picturings of majestic thoughtUpon a ground of madness;And over all Romance and SongA classic beauty throwing,And laurelled Clio at his sideHer storied pages showing.
¶All parties feared him: each in turnBeheld its schemes disjointed,As right or left his fatal glanceAnd spectral finger pointed.Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it downWith trenchant wit unsparing,And, mocking, rent with ruthless handThe robe Pretence was wearing.
¶Too honest or too proud to feignA love he never cherished,Beyond Virginia's border lineHis patriotism perished.While others hailed in distant skiesOur eagle's dusky pinion,He only saw the mountain birdStoop o'er his Old Dominion!
¶Still through each change of fortune strangeRacked nerve, and brain all burning,His loving faith in Mother-landKnew never shade of turning;By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide,Whatever sky was o'er him,He heard her rivers' rushing sound,Her blue peaks rose before him.
¶He held his slaves, yet made withalNo false and vain pretences,Nor paid a lying priest to seekFor Scriptural defences.[1343]His harshest words of proud rebuke,His bitterest taunt and scorning,Fell fire-like on the Northern browThat bent to him in fawning.
¶He held his slaves; yet kept the whileHis reverence for the Human;In the dark vassals of his willHe saw but Man and Woman!No hunter of God's outraged poorHis Roanoke valley entered;No trader in the souls of menAcross his threshold ventured.
¶And when the old and wearied manLay down for his last sleeping,And at his side, a slave no more,His brother-man stood weeping,His latest thought, his latest breath,To Freedom's duty giving,With failing tongue and trembling handThe dying blest the living.
¶Oh, never bore his ancient StateA truer son or braver!None trampling with a calmer scornOn foreign hate or favor.He knew her faults, yet never stoopedHis proud and manly feelingTo poor excuses of the wrongOr meanness of concealing.
¶But none beheld with clearer eyeThe plague-spot o'er her spreading,None heard more sure the steps of DoomAlong her future treading.For her as for himself he spake,When, his gaunt frame upbracing,He traced with dying hand 'Remorse!'And perished in the tracing.[1344]As from the grave where Henry sleeps,From Vernon's weeping willow,And from the grassy pall which hidesThe Sage of Monticello,So from the leaf-strewn burial-stoneOf Randolph's lowly dwelling,Virginia! o'er thy land of slavesA warning voice is swelling!
¶And hark! from thy deserted fieldsAre sadder warnings spoken,From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sonsTheir household gods have broken.The curse is on thee,—wolves for men,And briers for corn-sheaves giving!Oh, more than all thy dead renownWere now one hero living!
794 Massachusetts to Virginia
¶THE blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,
¶No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.
¶We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and highSwell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky;Yet not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor here,No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.
¶Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank;Cold on the shores of Labrador the fog lies white and dank;Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the heartswhich manThe fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.[1345]The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms,Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms;Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.
¶What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the dayWhen o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array?How, side by side with sons of hers, the Massachusetts menEncountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?
¶Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the callOf her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall?When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breathOf Northern winds the thrilling sounds of 'Liberty or Death!'
¶What asks the Old Dominion ? If now her sons have provedFalse to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved;If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn,Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn ?
¶We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell;Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell;We gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves,From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!
¶Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow;The spirit of her early time is with her even now;Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow and calm andcool,She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!
¶All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may,Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day;But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone,And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!
¶Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's freeairWith woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wilddespair;[1346]Cling closer to the 'cleaving curse' that writes upon your plainsThe blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.
¶Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old,By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold;Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his market value, whenThe maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce the slaver's den!
¶Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name;Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame;Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair universe;We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse.
¶A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hathbeen,Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men:The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering stillIn all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.
¶And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his preyBeneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of gray,How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke;How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke!
¶A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high,A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply;Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang,And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanicssprang!
¶The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thousands as of one,The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington;From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's rocky boundTo where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her round;
¶From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm reposeOf cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows,To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir,Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of 'God save Latimer!'[1347]And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray;And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay!Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill,And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from HolyokeHill.
¶The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters,Deep calling unto deep aloud, the sound of many waters!Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand ?No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land!
¶Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne,In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn;You've spurned our kindest counsels; you've hunted for our lives;And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves!
¶We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch withinThe fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin;We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can,With the strong upward tendencies and God-like soul of man!
¶But for us and for our children, the vow which we have givenFor freedom and humanity is registered in heaven;No slave-hunt in our borders,—no pirate on our strand!No fetters in the Bay State,—no slave upon our land!
795 Barclay of Ury
¶UP the streets of Aberdeen,By the kirk and college green,Rode the Laird of Ury;Close behind him, close beside,Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,Pressed the mob in fury.
¶Flouted him the drunken churl,Jeered at him the serving-girl,Prompt to please her master;And the begging carlin, lateFed and clothed at Ury's gate,Cursed him as he passed her.[1348]Yet, with calm and stately mien,Up the streets of AberdeenCame he slowly riding;And, to all he saw and heard,Answering not with bitter word,Turning not for chiding.
¶Came a troop with broadswords swinging,Bits and bridles sharply ringing,Loose and free and froward;Quoth the foremost, 'Ride him down!Push him! prick him! through the townDrive the Quaker coward!'
¶But from out the thickening crowdCried a sudden voice and loud:'Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!'And the old man at his sideSaw a comrade, battle tried,Scarred and sunburned darkly,
¶Who with ready weapon bare,Fronting to the troopers there,Cried aloud: 'God save us,Call ye coward him who stoodAnkle deep in Liitzen's blood,With the brave Gustavus?'
¶'Nay, I do not need thy sword,Comrade mine,' said Ury's lord.'Put it up, I pray thee:Passive to His holy will,Trust I in my Master still,Even though He slay me.
¶'Pledges of thy love and faith,Proved on many a field of death,Not by me are needed.'Marvelled much that henchman bold,That his laird, so stout of old,Now so meekly pleaded.[1349]'Woe's the day!' he sadly said,With a slowly shaking head,And a look of pity;'Ury's honest lord reviled,Mock of knave and sport of child,In his own good city!
¶'Speak the word, and, master mine,As we charged on Tilly's line,And his Walloon lancers,Smiting through their midst we'll teachCivil look and decent speechTo these boyish prancers!'
¶'Marvel not, mine ancient friend,Like beginning, like the end,'Quoth the Laird of Ury;'Is the sinful servant moreThan his gracious Lord who boreBonds and stripes in Jewry?
¶'Give me joy that in his nameI can bear, with patient frame,All these vain ones offer;While for them He suffereth long,Shall I answer wrong with wrong,Scoffing with the scoffer?
¶'Happier I, with loss of all,Hunted, oudawed, held in thrall,With few friends to greet me,Than when reeve and squire were seen,Riding out from Aberdeen,With bared heads to meet me.
¶'When each goodwife, o'er and o'er,Blessed me as I passed her door;And the snooded daughter,Through her casement glancing down,Smiled on him who bore renownFrom red fields of slaughter.[1350]'Hard to feel the stranger's scoff,Hard the old friend's falling off,Hard to learn forgiving;But the Lord His own rewards,And His love with theirs accords,Warm and fresh and living.
¶'Through this dark and stormy nightFaith beholds a feeble lightUp the blackness streaking;Knowing God's own time is best,In a patient hope I restFor the full day-breaking!'
¶So the Laird of Ury said,Turning slow his horse's headTowards the Tolbooth prison,Where, through iron gates, he heardPoor disciples of the WordPreach of Christ arisen!
¶Not in vain, Confessor old,Unto us the tale is toldOf thy day of trial;Every age on him who straysFrom its broad and beaten waysPours its seven-fold vial.
¶Happy he whose inward earAngel comfortings can hear,O'er the rabble's laughter;And while Hatred's fagots burn,Glimpses through the smoke discernOf the good hereafter.
¶Knowing this, that never yetShare of Truth was vainly setIn the world's wide fallow;After hands shall sow the seed,After hands from hill and meadReap the harvests yellow.[1351]Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,Must the moral pioneerFrom the Future borrow;Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,And, on midnight's sky of rain,Paint the golden morrow!
796 Maud Muller
¶MAUD MULLER on a summer's day
¶Raked the meadow sweet with hay.Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealthOf simple beauty and rustic health.Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleeThe mock-bird echoed from his tree.
¶And blushed as she gave it, looking downOn her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.[1352]'Thanks!' said the Judge; 'a sweeter draughtFrom a fairer hand was never quaffed.'
¶'And her modest answer and graceful airShow her wise and good as she is fair.[1353]'Would she were mine, and I to-day,Like her, a harvester of hay;
¶And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,'Ah, that I were free again![1354]'Free as when I rode that day,Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.'
¶God pity them both! and pity us all,Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.[1355]For of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these: 'It might have been
The Barefoot Boy
¶BLESSINGS on thee, little man,Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!With thy turned-up pantaloons,And thy merry whistled tunes;With thy red lip, redder stillKissed by strawberries on the hill;With the sunshine on thy face,Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;From my heart I give thee joy,—I was once a barefoot boy!Prince thou art,—the grown-up manOnly is republican.Let the million-dollared ride!Barefoot, trudging at his side,Thou hast more than he can buyIn the reach of ear and eye,—Outward sunshine, inward joy:Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
¶Oh for boyhood's painless play,Sleep that wakes in laughing day,Health that mocks the doctor's rules,Knowledge never learned of schools,Of the wild bee's morning chase,Of the wild-flower's time and place,Flight of fowl and habitudeOf the tenants of the wood;How the tortoise bears his shell,How the woodchuck digs his cell,And the ground-mole sinks his well;[1356]How the robin feeds her young,How the oriole's nest is hung;Where the whitest lilies blow,Where the freshest berries grow,Where the ground-nut trails its vine,Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;Of the black wasp's cunning way,Mason of his walls of clay,And the architectural plansOf gray hornet artisans!For, eschewing books and tasks,Nature answers all he asks;Hand in hand with her he walks,Face to face with her he talks,Part and parcel of her joy,—Blessings on the barefoot boy!
¶Oh for boyhood's time of June,Crowding years in one brief moon,When all things I heard or saw,Me, their master, waited for.I was rich in flowers and trees,Humming-birds and honey-bees;For my sport the squirrel played,Plied the snouted mole his spade;For my taste the blackberry conePurpled over hedge and stone;Laughed the brook for my delightThrough the day and through the night,Whispering at the garden wall,Talked with me from fall to fall;Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,Mine the walnut slopes beyond,Mine, on bending orchard trees,Apples of Hesperides!Still as my horizon grew,Larger grew my riches too;All the world I saw or knewSeemed a complex Chinese toy,Fashioned for a barefoot boy![1357]Oh for festal dainties spread,Like my bowl of milk and bread;Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,On the door-stone, gray and rude!O'er me, like a regal tent,Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,Looped in many a wind-swung fold;While for music came the playOf the pied frogs' orchestra;And, to light the noisy choir,Lit the fly his lamp of fire.I was monarch: pomp and joyWaited on the barefoot boy!
¶Cheerily, then, my little man,Live and laugh, as boyhood can!Though the flinty slopes be hard,Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,Every morn shall lead thee throughFresh baptisms of the dew;Every evening from thy feetShall the cool wind kiss the heat:All too soon these feet must hideIn the prison cells of pride,Lose the freedom of the sod,Like a colt's for work be shod,Made to tread the mills of toil,Up and down in ceaseless moil:Happy if their track be foundNever on forbidden ground;Happy if they sink not inQuick and treacherous sands of sin.Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
798 Skipper Ireson's Ride
¶OF all the rides since the birth of time,Told in story or sung in rhyme,—On Apuleius's Golden Ass,[1358]Or one-eyed Calender's horse of brass,Witch astride of a human back,Islam's prophet on Al-Borak,—The strangest ride that ever was spedWas Ireson's, out from Marblehead!Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
¶Body of turkey, head of owl,Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,Feathered and ruffled in every part,Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.Scores of women, old and young,Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:' Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!'
¶Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chaseBacchus round some antique vase,Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,Over and over the Maenads sang:' Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!'
¶Small pity for him!—He sailed awayFrom a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay,—Sailed away from a sinking wreck,With his own town's-people on her deck!' Lay by! lay by!' they called to him.Back he answered, 'Sink or swim!Brag of your catch of fish again!'[1359]And off he sailed through the fog and rain!Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
¶Fathoms deep in dark ChaleurThat wreck shall lie forevermore.Mother and sister, wife and maid,Looked from the rocks of MarbleheadOver the moaning and rainy sea,—Looked for the coming that might not be!What did the winds and the sea-birds sayOf the cruel captain who sailed away?—Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
¶Through the street, on either side,Up flew windows, doors swung wide;Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,Hulks of old sailors run aground,Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:' Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' f utherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!'
¶Sweetly along the Salem roadBloom of orchard and lilac showed.Little the wicked skipper knewOf the fields so green and the sky so blue.Riding there in his sorry trim,Like an Indian idol glum and grim,Scarcely he seemed the sound to hearOf voices shouting, far and near:' Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!'[1360]'Hear me, neighbors!' at last he cried,—'What to me is this noisy ride?What is the shame that clothes the skinTo the nameless horror that lives within?Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,And hear a cry from a reeling deck!Hate me and curse me,—I only dreadThe hand of God and the face of the dead!'Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
¶Then the wife of the skipper lost at seaSaid, 'God has touched him! why should weSaid an old wife mourning her only son,'Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!'So with soft relentings and rude excuse,Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,And gave him a cloak to hide him in,And left him alone with his shame and sin.Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
The Pipes at Lucknow
¶PIPES of the misty moorlands,Voice of the glens and hills;The droning of the torrents,The treble of the rills!Not the braes of bloom and heather,Nor the mountains dark with rain,Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,Have heard your sweetest strain!
¶Dear to the Lowland reaper,And plaided mountaineer,—To the cottage and the castleThe Scottish pipes are dear;—Sweet sounds the ancient pibrochO'er mountain, loch, and glade;[1361]But the sweetest of all musicThe pipes at Lucknow played.
¶Day by day the Indian tigerLouder yelled, and nearer crept;Round and round the jungle-serpentNear and nearer circles swept.'Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,—Pray to-day!' the soldier said;'To-morrow, death's between usAnd the wrong and shame we dread.'
¶Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,Till their hope became despair;And the sobs of low bewailingFilled the pauses of their prayer.Then up spake a Scottish maiden,With her ear unto the ground:'Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it?The pipes o' Havelock sound!'
¶Hushed the wounded man his groaning;Hushed the wife her little ones;Alone they heard the drum-rollAnd the roar of Sepoy guns.But to sounds of home and childhoodThe Highland ear was true;—As her mother's cradle-crooningThe mountain pipes she knew.
¶Like the march of soundless musicThrough the vision of the seer,More of feeling than of hearing,Of the heart than of the ear,She knew the droning pibroch,She knew the Campbell's call:'Hark! hear ye no MacGregor's,The grandest o' them all!'
¶Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless,And they caught the sound at last;[1362]Faint and far beyond the GoomteeRose and fell the piper's blast!Then a burst of wild thanksgivingMingled woman's voice and man's;'God be praised!—the march of Havelock!The piping of the clans!'
¶Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,Stinging all the air to life.But when the far-off dust-cloudTo plaided legions grew,Full tenderly and blithesomelyThe pipes of rescue blew!
¶Round the silver domes of Lucknow,Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,Breathed the air to Britons dearest,The air of Auld Lang Syne.O'er the cruel roll of war-drumsRose that sweet and homelike strain;And the tartan clove the turban,As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.
¶Dear to the corn-land reaperAnd plaided mountaineer,—To the cottage and the castleThe piper's song is dear.Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibrochO'er mountain, glen, and glade;But the sweetest of all musicThe pipes at Lucknow played!
Barbara Frietchie
¶The clustered spires of Frederick standGreen-walled by the hills of Maryland.[1363]Round about them orchards sweep,Apple and peach tree fruited deep,