Tears fell, when thou wert dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long, where thou art lying, Will tears the cold turf steep.
When hearts, whose truth was proven, Like thine, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth;
And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine, Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine,
It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow, But I've in vain essayed it, And feel I cannot now.
While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.
TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. TOUSSAINT! the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling rustic tend his plow Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den, O miserable chieftain where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies:
There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to
Her foulest gift to Heaven.
And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving,
The court of England's queen For the dead monster so abhorred while living In mourning garb is seen.
With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning; By lone Edgbaston's side
Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, Bare-headed and wet-eyed!
Silent for once the restless hive of labor, Save the low funeral tread,
Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor The good deeds of the dead.
For him no minster's chant of the immortals Rose from the lips of sin;
Nomitered priest swung back the heavenly portals To let the white soul in.
But Age and Sickness framed their tearful faces In the low hovel's door,
And prayers went up from all the dark by-places And Ghettos of the poor.
The pallid toiler and the negro chattel, The vagrant of the street,
The human dice wherewith in games of battle The lords of earth compete,
Touched with a grief that needs no outward draping,
All swelled the long lament, Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping His viewless monument!
For never yet, with ritual pomp and splendor, In the long heretofore,
A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender, Has England's turf closed o'er.
THE dreamy rhymer's measured snore Falls heavy on our ears no more; And by long strides are left behind The dear delights of womankind,
Who wage their battles like their loves,
In satin waistcoats and kid gloves, And have achieved the crowning work
When they have trussed and skewered a Turk. Another comes with stouter tread, And stalks among the statelier dead. He rushes on, and hails by turns High-crested Scott, broad-breasted Burns; And shows the British youth, who ne'er Will lag behind, what Romans were, When all the Tuscans and their Lars Shouted, and shook the towers of Mars.
THOU large-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand! whose soul amid the
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance, And answers roar for roar, as spirits can, I would some mild miraculous thunder ran Above the applauded circus, in appliance
Of thine own nobler nature's strength and sci
Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place With holier light! that thou to woman's claim, And man's, might join beside the angel's grace Or a pure genius sanctified from blame;
Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace,
To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.
TRUE genius, but true woman! dost deny Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn, And break away the gauds and armlets worn By weaker women in captivity? Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry
Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn ; Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn, Floats back disheveled strength in agony, Disproving thy man's name; and while before The world thou burnest in a poet-fire, We see thy woman-heart beat evermore
And artists envious, and the mob profane. We know all this, we know! Cam'st thou from heaven, O child Of light! but this to declare? Alas! to help us forget Such barren knowledge awhile, God gave the poet his song. Therefore a secret unrest Tortured thee, brilliant and bold ! Therefore triumph itself Tasted amiss to thy soul. Therefore, with blood of thy foes, Trickled in silence thine own. Therefore the victor's heart Broke on the field of his fame. Ah! as of old from the pomp Of Italian Milan, the fair Flower of marble of white Southern palaces, steps Bordered by statues, and walks Terraced, and orange bowers
Longed himself back to the fields, Rivers, and high-roofed towns Of his native Germany; so,
So, how often! from hot Paris drawing-rooms, and lamps Blazing, and brilliant crowds, Starred and jeweled, of men Famous, of women the queens
Of dazzling converse, and fumes
Of praise, hot, heady fumes, to the poor brain That mount, that madden ! - how oft Heine's spirit, outworn,
Longed itself out of the din
Back to the tranquil, the cool, Far German home of his youth! See in the May afternoon,
O'er the fresh short turf of the Hartz, A youth, with the foot of youth, Heine thou climbest again. Up, through the tall dark firs Warming their heads in the sun, Checkering the grass with their shade, Up, by the stream with its huge Moss-hung bowlders and thin Musical water half-hid,
Up o'er the rock-strewn slope, With the sinking sun, and the air Chill, and the shadows now Long on the gray hillside, To the stone-roofed hut at the top.
Or, yet later, in watch On the roof of the Brocken tower Thou standest, gazing! to see The broad red sun, over field, Forest and city and spire And mist-tracked stream of the wide, Wide German land, going down In a bank of vapors, — again Standest! at nightfall, alone; Or, next morning, with limbs Rested by slumber, and heart Freshened and light with the May, O'er the gracious spurs coming down Of the lower Hartz, among oaks, And beechen coverts, and copse Of hazels green in whose depth Ilse, the fairy transformed, In a thousand water-breaks light Pours her petulant youth, Climbing the rock which juts O'er the valley, the dizzily perched Rock! to its Iron Cross
Once more thou cling'st; to the Cross Clingest! with smiles, with a sigh.
COME as artist, come as guest, Welcome to the expectant West, Hero of the charmed pen, Loved of children, loved of men. We have felt thy spell for years; Oft with laughter, oft with tears, Thou hast touched the tenderest part Of our inmost, hidden heart. We have fixed our eager gaze On thy pages nights and days, Wishing, as we turned them o'er, Like poor Oliver, for "more," And the creatures of thy brain In our memory remain,
Till through them we seem to be Old acquaintances of thee.
Much we hold it thee to greet, Gladly sit we at thy feet;
On thy features we would look, As upon a living book,
And thy voice would grateful hear, Glad to feel that Boz were near, That his veritable soul Held us by direct control: Therefore, author loved the best, Welcome, welcome to the West.
In immortal Weller's name,
By the rare Micawber's fame,
By the flogging wreaked on Squeers, By Job Trotter's fluent tears, By the beadle Bumble's fate At the hands of shrewish mate, By the famous Pickwick Club, By the dream of Gabriel Grubb, In the name of Snodgrass' muse, Tupman's amorous interviews, Winkle's ludicrous mishaps, And the fat boy's countless naps; By Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer, By Miss Sally Brass, the lawyer, In the name of Newman Noggs, River Thames, and London fogs, Richard Swiveller's excess, Feasting with the Marchioness, By Jack Bunsby's oracles, By the chime of Christmas bells, By the cricket on the hearth, By the sound of childish mirth, By spread tables and good cheer, Wayside inns and pots of beer, Hostess plump and jolly host, Coaches for the turnpike post, Chambermaid in love with Boots, Toodles, Traddles, Tapley, Toots, Betsey Trotwood, Mister Dick, Susan Nipper, Mistress Chick, Snevellicci, Lilyvick, Mantalini's predilections To transfer his warm affections, By poor Barnaby and Grip, Flora, Dora, Di, and Gip, Perrybingle, Pinch and Pip, Welcome, long-expected guest, Welcome to the grateful West.
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