Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 4 | Page 4

reformer when
He pleaded for his captive fellow-men,
Who
spurned him in the market-place, and sought
Within thy walls, St.
Tammany, to bind
In party chains the free and honest thought,
The
angel utterance of an upright mind,
Well is it now that o'er his grave
ye raise
The stony tribute of your tardy praise,
For not alone that
pile shall tell to Fame
Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders'
shame!
1841.
TO A FRIEND,

ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE.
How smiled the land of France
Under thy blue eye's glance,

Light-hearted rover
Old walls of chateaux gray,
Towers of an early
day,
Which the Three Colors play
Flauntingly over.
Now midst the brilliant train
Thronging the banks of Seine
Now
midst the splendor
Of the wild Alpine range,
Waking with change
on change
Thoughts in thy young heart strange,
Lovely, and tender.
Vales, soft Elysian,
Like those in the vision
Of Mirza, when,
dreaming,
He saw the long hollow dell,
Touched by the prophet's
spell,
Into an ocean swell
With its isles teeming.
Cliffs wrapped in snows of years,
Splintering with icy spears

Autumn's blue heaven
Loose rock and frozen slide,
Hung on the
mountain-side,
Waiting their hour to glide
Downward,
storm-driven!
Rhine-stream, by castle old,
Baron's and robber's hold,
Peacefully
flowing;
Sweeping through vineyards green,
Or where the cliffs are
seen
O'er the broad wave between
Grim shadows throwing.
Or, where St. Peter's dome
Swells o'er eternal Rome,
Vast, dim, and
solemn;
Hymns ever chanting low,
Censers swung to and fro,

Sable stoles sweeping slow
Cornice and column!
Oh, as from each and all
Will there not voices call
Evermore back
again?
In the mind's gallery
Wilt thou not always see

Dim
phantoms beckon thee
O'er that old track again?
New forms thy presence haunt,
New voices softly chant,
New faces
greet thee!
Pilgrims from many a shrine
Hallowed by poet's line,

At memory's magic sign,
Rising to meet thee.

And when such visions come
Unto thy olden home,
Will they not
waken
Deep thoughts of Him whose hand
Led thee o'er sea and
land
Back to the household band
Whence thou wast taken?
While, at the sunset time,
Swells the cathedral's chime,
Yet, in thy
dreaming,
While to thy spirit's eye
Yet the vast mountains lie

Piled in the Switzer's sky,
Icy and gleaming:
Prompter of silent prayer,
Be the wild picture there
In the mind's
chamber,
And, through each coming day
Him who, as staff and stay,

Watched o'er thy wandering way,
Freshly remember.
So, when the call shall be
Soon or late unto thee,
As to all given,

Still may that picture live,
All its fair forms survive,
And to thy
spirit give
Gladness in Heaven!
1841
LUCY HOOPER.
Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. I., on the 1st of 8th mo., 1841, aged
twenty-four years.
They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead,
That all of thee we loved and
cherished
Has with thy summer roses perished;
And left, as its
young beauty fled,
An ashen memory in its stead,
The twilight of a
parted day
Whose fading light is cold and vain,
The heart's faint
echo of a strain
Of low, sweet music passed away.
That true and
loving heart, that gift
Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound,

Bestowing, with a glad unthrift,
Its sunny light on all around,

Affinities which only could
Cleave to the pure, the true, and good;

And sympathies which found no rest,
Save with the loveliest and best.

Of them--of thee--remains there naught
But sorrow in the
mourner's breast?
A shadow in the land of thought?
No! Even my
weak and trembling faith
Can lift for thee the veil which doubt
And
human fear have drawn about
The all-awaiting scene of death.

Even as thou wast I see thee still;
And, save the absence of all ill

And pain and weariness, which here
Summoned the sigh or wrung
the tear,
The same as when, two summers back,
Beside our
childhood's Merrimac,
I saw thy dark eye wander o'er
Stream,
sunny upland, rocky shore,
And heard thy low, soft voice alone

Midst lapse of waters, and the tone
Of pine-leaves by the west-wind
blown,
There's not a charm of soul or brow,
Of all we knew and
loved in thee,
But lives in holier beauty now,
Baptized in
immortality!
Not mine the sad and freezing dream
Of souls that,
with their earthly mould,
Cast off the loves and joys of old,

Unbodied, like a pale moonbeam,
As pure, as passionless, and cold;

Nor mine the hope of Indra's son,
Of slumbering in oblivion's rest,

Life's myriads blending into one,
In blank annihilation blest;

Dust-atoms of the infinite,
Sparks scattered from the central light,

And winning back through mortal pain
Their old unconsciousness
again.
No! I have friends in Spirit Land,
Not shadows in a shadowy
band,
Not others, but themselves are they.
And still I think of them
the same
As when the Master's summons came;
Their change,--the
holy morn-light breaking
Upon the dream-worn sleeper, waking,--

A change from twilight into day.
They 've laid thee midst the household graves,
Where father, brother,
sister lie;
Below thee sweep the dark blue waves,
Above thee bends
the summer sky.
Thy own loved church in sadness read
Her solemn
ritual o'er thy head,
And blessed and hallowed with her prayer
The
turf laid lightly o'er thee there.

That church, whose rites and liturgy,

Sublime and old, were truth to thee,
Undoubted to thy bosom taken,

As symbols of a faith unshaken.
Even I, of simpler views, could
feel
The beauty of thy trust and zeal;
And, owning not thy creed,
could see
How deep a truth it seemed to thee,
And how thy fervent
heart had thrown
O'er all, a