Jonathan E. Hoag

“ And children gaze at mamma's placid face,
While crepe hangs sadly by the cottage door.
"Why fall those crystal tears, my mamma dear?
We have the home, where sway the leafy vines,
Where budding flowers bedeck the velvet lawn,
And crimson climbing rose the trellis twines.
"Pray, then, what need we now, my mamma dear?
We have the birds that sing in verdant bowers;
Among the blossoms buzz the busy bees,
Whilst health and friends in bounteous store are ours. ”

“ With crimson leaves thou wav'st thy blooming fruit
Thy tiny petals, kissed by morning sun,
With glad acclaim enjoy his golden rays.
The air, as by sweet frankincense perfumed,
Brings us the scent of balmy summer days.
Cease, ye vain nymphs from prairies wild and far,
Who would your gaudy robes in pride compare
Who on all plainer garbs affect to frown,
While perfumed lilies scent the morning air.
Now chilling blasts have touched thy crimson cheek;
Thy frosted leaves are scattered far and near;
Thy tender petals and thy fragrant bloom
Are sleeping through the days so cold and drear. ”

“ Thou gifted man with the poet's pen,
Tenderly touching the hearts of men,
Hast an eye that sees, and an ear that hears.
The beautiful youthhood of spirit dwells
With thee, as thy rhyming melody tells
Of the old farm home or the school-house red,
Of Dionondawa's rock-chiseled bed.
On the Mohawk's trail, midst its peaks and dells,
This spirit of youth in its grandeur swells,
When it pipes through the reeds by Nature fed. ”

“ Ah that little red schoolhouse, set close by the wayside!
The hill and the woods where the wintergreen grew;
Not a shade nor a shadow touched lawn or touched window;
Not a wide spreading oak nor a hanging vine blew.
Now that little red schoolhouse that stood by the wayside,
Not a stone nor a brick marks the place where it stood! ”

“ The wreck of planets, and the crash of suns?
Cyclopic stithies, burning hot with rage,
Shaped thy dark history through every age;
No weakling man unpunished may defy
Those pits of vengeance that beneath thee lie:
For grim Hephaestus' might, once rous'd in ire,
Can fuse the living world with sacred fire!
Yet in thy midnight deeps obscure and cold,
Presumptuous mortals brave the curse of old;
For there midst vault and cleft th' invaders find
Abounding gems, and ores of varied kind:
Hephaestus, seeing, shaketh not his head,
Indulgent to the quest by valor bred. ”

“ OLD CLOUD'S REST
Inspired by a vast panorama of snow-clad and sun-kissed granite peaks in the Yosemite Valley, of which Cloud's Rest (5912 feet) is the highest.
How proud you rear your haughty crest,
And snow-clad, frown on heights below;
Tho' humbler, they like you are drest
In mantles of eternal snow.
Old Cloud's Rest!
Five thousand feet you climb the skies,
And view your sisters with disdain—
Yet seismic powers that bade you rise
May level you to dust again!
Old Cloud's Rest! ”

“ How fast the changing years go fleeting by!
As from a mound beneath th' ethereal sky
We gaze along the road o'er which we came
And find, alas! no home nor friend the same!
"Once more I see along the distant years
A face long gone, with all its smiles and tears;" ”

“ Its edge, once keen, is notched and worn,
Yet belt and scabbard heard the call,
On fields once red e'er I was born!
Perchance one grasp'd this hilt, now old,
Upon the field of Bemis Heights,
While yoemanry, unbent and bold,
Cried freedom for a country's rights. ”

“ To Some Old Revolutionary Earthworks Now to Be Seen Near Scuylerville, N. Y.
What mean these grassy mounds that deck the mead?
What mortals built them, and for what strange need?
All nature smiles; of joy there seems no dearth? ”

“ Where cowslips grow in countless grassy nooks.
Oh, happy childhood! Ever may it be
That naught but silvery clouds are turned to thee:
Our paths have thorns and pitfalls not a few;
May thine, instead, hold flowers of richest hue. ”

“ Drift vaguely down through Time's effacing storms,
Say, shall your antique eons come again,
To bare your secrets to the listening plain?
Mark yonder hills of sempiternal green,
Beyond whose crests still higher mounts are seen;
Whose hoary summits were in pomp upthrown,
Ere man or beast upon the earth was known.
Shall they, whose granite heads so proudly rise,
Sink prostrate and once more ascend the skies? ”

“ Where 'ashes and dust to dust," was said!
The falling clods of earth in the tomb,
Awake in sorrowing hearts a gloom!
In solemn tread we turn away,
As the shadows fall at close of day.
O joyous Life and closing Death! ”

“ We look away, and seem to spy
The Hand that stirs them from on high!
What wonders to the mind unfold!
Such lore no saint or sage e'er told.
O'er midnight oil the sophists strain,
But Nature shows their work in vain. ”

“ May oft be moistened by thy tears.
The midnight tasks that hold from sleep
Teach us to garner as we reap.
The ticking clock on yonder wall,
The drooping lids as swift hours call!
The morning brings the rising sun ”

“ And now, when mellow Nature knows
Th' alternate sway of sun and snows;
When fragrant flowers and bracing cold
Pursue each other round the wold;
We own thy power, and cherish dear
The friends thou spar'st us, year to year ”

“ Ah, could it be, a hand unseen
Just for a moment drew the screen?
I saw a face remembered—known,
Now radiant by a shining throne.
That face oft seen among the flowers,
Where dewdrops clung in early hours! ”

“ To the American Flag
Starry folds, whose matchless splendor
Long hath blessed our grateful eyes;
Gleaming with a light more tender
Than your rivals in the skies;
Wave as always, in a glory
None may tarnish or excel ”

“ She brings the sweets which Nature gave:
"These for my mama; this, her grave!"
Hail, childish love, thou power benign!
Who can reveal thy depths divine?
Not saint nor sage with wisdom blest
Can sound the love in infant breast. ”

“ A tiny umpire, proud and wise,
Judges each stroke with watchful eyes.
Glances dart eager; words are few;
Each player looks the other through.
Keen wits are matched; in mimic strife,
They practice for the game of life! ”

“ A mother's whispering voice we seem to hear;
"My child, a mother's hand shall lead the way;
Though waves may toss the bark, the Pilot's near."
This day we come, our hearts o'erbrimmed with grief;
We touch the bier beneath the form we love. ”

“ What hand was it that led thee to be seen?
"'Twas love that beckoned me from realms above!"
No prairie-rose from far Dakota's plains;
No evening breeze from fields of tasseled corn;
No fragrances from clover-laden lanes—
Preceded thee our cottage to adorn.
Let me but live amidst the birds and flowers,
Where Nature sings from early morn to eve;
Where friendship basks in silent, sunny bowers,
And the deft hand can soothe those hearts that grieve. ”

“ The Home that Used to Be
Oh, the home that used to be!
Sportive children, careless, free;
Vines around the cottage door,
Giant poplars hovering o'er!
Laughing children home from school,
Playing in the evening's cool ”

“ With bleak unbounded range?
What bard with grace could ever sing
The cloying charm of endless spring,
Or praise eternal day?
Since Man is tuned to Time alone,
The wise in Death a friend must own,
And bow to Nature's way! ”

“ Mouth that can pout and smile and sing,
Eyes that through pinky fingers peek.
Rippling brook 'midst the springtime flowers;
Singing birds in the leafy trees;
Nought of the love that Nature brings,
Can equal the love that a mother sees. ”

“ They sought the sportive speckled trout at play.
There now a whitened path of adamant
Winds in and out among the birchen trees,
And far below, in verdant grassy mead,
The happy children bask in Autumn's breeze.
The distant vista opens wide the scene;
For miles on miles we skirt the mountain side;
With glass we sweep the rival peaks afar,
While silvery clouds o'er all in splendor glide.
On jutting peak and gently rolling slope
Autumnal tints ten thousand beauties bring;
No artist brush can rival such as these,
Save Nature when she gilds the fields in Spring. ”

“ Bears the stern scars where glacial legions pressed;
Whose lofty brow defied the hosts that came
Down from the realms of cold auroral flame.
Weird was the night, when earth's ebullient deep
Cast up thy form, an outer watch to keep;
When newborn skies uncanny radiance shed,
Whilst frozen floods diffused a crystal dread.
Hast still in memory aught of that far day,
Ere the fair Hudson flowed its peaceful way;
Ere brother mountains touched the vaulted sky,
Or flowers or forests blessed the searching eye?
Vast boulders lying round thy rugged base
Bespeak an age when mortals had no place ”

“ Carve the high rocks and grottoes, guard the streams,
Fashion the hills and valleys, and o'er all
The sentient scene bespread the green of spring,
The hues of summer, the autumnal wealth
Of red and gold, and winter's mantle hoar.
There speaks a voice amongst the crowd unheard;
A low and soothing voice that strikes the soul,
Yet sounds not on the ear; an awesome voice
That swells from Nature's heart and teaches truth. ”

“ Hoag, however, was endowed with the true vision and divine sensitiveness of the bard; and vibrated sympathetically to the pastoral scenes around him. Alive to beauty in every form, he found it wherever he looked; and watched the calm agrestic years roll by, with the life of the old farm home, and the little school, and the academy, and the general training on the green. ”

“ It is that writer's hope, both from personal regard and from a disinterested love of beauty in literature, that he may have the privilege of adding some day to these tributes a centennial ode which its venerable subject may read in the full vigour of a lengthened span. ”

“ Whose deathless might Sardathrion's towers o'erthrew,
And Babylonia's matchless splendour slew,
Tell by what art our poet tunes his lays
With nobler beauty thro' increasing days?
Can we not fancy that the stainless heart
Throbs with the rhythm of Nature's ev'ry part ”

“ Touch the green slope with soul-awak'ning blaze,
A thoughtful bard reveals, whose polish'd flights
Spring from the scene on Dillon's pleasant heights.
An ancient boulder is the poet's seat,
A verdant vista fronts the blest retreat ”

“ Hoag, which he has celebrated in so many delightful poems and essays, was an idyllic kind of rural life which has today largely vanished through the incursions of the railway, telephone, and postal system; and which was marked by that lofty and picturesque simplicity formed when a race of fine stock and traditions reverts to the stalwart condition of the pioneer. ”

“ And children were seen!
I stand at the side of a now sunken grave,
And list for a whisper midst hot falling tears;
The silence of death broods where sweet flowers should wave,
As backward I glance o'er the many sad years. ”

“ With buoyant heart we saw them march away!
A father's pride, a mother's teardrop starts;
Their soldier boy must brave a foreign foe!
A pang sweeps through those loving parents' hearts,
That none save such as they can ever know. ”

“ While he dreamed of a mother long since dead;
A mother who toiled in the cotton field,
As she thought of her boy of the curly head.
A coarse sack covered his sturdy loins;
There were no child-toys for that barefoot boy ”

“ Read at the Closing Meeting of the Alpha Class of Marshall Seminary
Listen, O my friends and neighbors,
To the story I shall tell you,
To the story, to the legend,
Of this school and of its teachers.
Years ago when we were younger,
Men and women came together,
Came together to consult there
How to lead us, how to teach us,
Teach us in the ways of Wisdom,
For 'tis better than gold treasures. ”

“ While fireflies whirl, and nightbirds feed,
Thy notes waft o'er the darkened mead.
The owl is heard from hill afar,
While sinks to rest the evening star.
The full moon lights the eastern sky;
Thy song becomes a lullaby. ”

“ With Aesculapian power to cure
Each lethal ill our planet knows.
Here, ere the sun appeared at day,
Once Hocked each tenant of the mead;
Each bird and beast, with direful need,
To drink, and wash its ills away. ”

“ As though the veil between were leaking?
What means it now, as evening lowers?
The breath of Heaven? The scent of flowers?
Or—what one's faith has long been seeking?
All things in life must have an ending ”

“ To peering eyes elate;
Thy little home with babies four,
But now how wrecked by Fate!
Here beneath the berry-bush,
A new-made grave we see,
Enshrined by loyal, loving hands—
Yet no bird sings for me. ”

“ Whose moving strains our list'ning grandsires knew,
Yet who can charm ourselves with art as true?
What may we write of his Parnassian Jays
Beyond our censure, and above our praise?
Life is a mountain, reaching to the sky,
With peak for ever hid, supremely high;
Its slipp'ry slopes each mortal seeks to scale—
Seeks but to pause, to falter, and to fail. ”

“ Shed their fragrance 'neath the snow-drifts."
"Do I love thee?" quoth the maiden,
Does the oak support the vine-stock,
Clinging closely with its tendrils,
Safe, secure, in love celestial?
Does the birdling nestle closely
'Neath the wing's maternal shelter
Till the stormy blast is over
And the dangers are all passed? ”

“ The cup was dashed untasted at our feet!
Though earthly pleasures serve not to restrain,
For those we love we longer would remain;
But unseen hands one day our anchor lift;
We sail away—into the silence drift! ”