John Greenleaf Whittier

“ XVII.
⁠What greetings smile, what farewells wave,
⁠What loved ones enter and depart!
⁠The good, the beautiful, the brave,
⁠The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart!
⁠How conscious seems the frozen sod
⁠And beechen slope whereon they trod!
The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends
Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent friends. ”

“ A tender hope I drew,
And, pleasant as a dawn of spring,
The thought within me grew,
That love would temper every change,
And soften all surprise,
And, misty with the dreams of earth,
The hills of Heaven arise. ”

“ Over the rocks and the seething brine,
They burned the wreck of the Palatine.
In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped,
"The sea and the rocks are dumb," they said;
"There'll be no reckoning with the dead." ”

“ The shadows round the inland sea
⁠Are deepening into night;
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee
⁠They chase the lessening light.
Tired of the long day's blinding heat,
⁠I rest my languid eye,
Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet,
⁠Thy sunset waters lie! ”

“ Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell,
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.
And over all the still unhidden sun,
Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain,
Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain ”

“ As silently we turned the eastern flank
Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank,
Doubling the night along our rugged road:
We felt that man was more than his abode,—
⁠The inward life than Nature's raiment more ”

“ That Shadow blends with mountain gray,
It speaks but what the light waves say,—
Death walks apart from Fear to-day!
Rocked on her breast, these pines and I
Alike on Nature's love rely;
And equal seems to live or die. ”

“ Wherewith our silence crowned thee;
And, strangers all, we felt the ties
Of sisters and of brothers;
Ah! whose of all those kindly eyes
Now smile upon another's?
The sport of Time, who still apart
The waifs of life is flinging ”

“ The known and nameless stars revolve
⁠Around the Central Sun.
And if we reap as we have sown,
⁠And take the dole we deal,
The law of pain is love alone,—
⁠The wounding is to heal.
Unharmed from change to change we glide,
⁠We fall as in our dreams ”

“ Sail on, Three Bells, forever,
In grateful memory sail!
Ring on, Three Bells of rescue,
Above the wave and gale!
Type of the Love eternal,
Repeat the Master's cry,
As tossing through our darkness
The lights of God draw nigh! ”

“ The heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds.
XXVIII.
⁠And thou, my song, I send thee forth,
⁠Where harsher songs of mine have flown;
⁠Go, find a place at home and hearth
⁠Where'er thy singer's name is known;
⁠Revive for him the kindly thought
⁠Of friends; and they who love him not,
Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may take
The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake. ”

“ And evermore the love of God
⁠Rebuked the fear of man.
We dwell with fears on either hand,
⁠Within a daily strife,
And spectral problems waiting stand
⁠Before the gates of life.
The doubts we vainly seek to solve,
⁠The truths we know, are one ”

“ Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay.
IV.
⁠I passed this way a year ago:
⁠The wind blew south; the noon of day
⁠Was warm as June's; and save that snow
⁠Flecked the low mountains far away,
⁠And that the vernal-seeming breeze
⁠Mocked faded grass and leafless trees,
I might have dreamed of summer as I lay,
Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play. ”

“ No evil to his creatures wills,
The simple faith remains, that He
Will do, whatever that may be,
The best alike for man and tree.
What mosses over one shall grow,
What light and life the other know,
Unanxious, leaving Him to show. ”

“ Rose-red in morning's glow.
The freshness of the early time
On every breeze is blown;
As glad the sea, as blue the sky,—
The change is ours alone;
The saddest is my own.
A stranger now, a world-worn man,
Is he who bears my name ”

“ The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to beauty join.
XX.
⁠Better to stem with heart and hand
⁠The roaring tide of life, than lie
⁠Unmindful, on its flowery strand,
⁠Of God's occasions drifting by! ”