Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West,

From out his giant breast,

Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main Jubilant to the sky,

Thundered the mighty cry,

HONOR TO KANE!

In vain, in vain beneath his feet we flung
The reddening roses! All in vain we poured
The golden wine, and round the shining board
Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung

With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast! Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes, Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Faded and faded! And the brave young heart That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed Of all its vital heat, in that long quest For the lost captain, now within his breast More and more faintly throbbed. His was the victory; but as his grasp Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp, Death launched a whistling dart; And ere the thunders of applause were done His bright eyes closed forever on the sun! Too late, too late the splendid prize he won In the Olympic race of Science and of Art! Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone, Drifts from the white North to a Tropic zone,

And in the burning day
Wastes peak by peak away,

Till on some rosy even

It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,

And melted into heaven!

He needs no tears who lived a noble life!
We will not weep for him who died so well;
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell
The story of his strife;

Such homage suits him well,

Better than funeral pomp or passing bell!

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow! Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe

Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear
Crunches his prey. The insufficient share
Of loathsome food;

The lethargy of famine; the despair

Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued: Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued Like pallid masks, while dolefully behind Glimmered the fading embers of a mind! That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand

Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew; The whispers of rebelliou, faint and few At first, but deepening ever till they grew Into black thoughts of murder, such the throng Of horrors bound the hero. High the song Should be that hymns the noble part he played ! Sinking himself, yet ministering aid

To all around him. By a mighty will
Living defiant of the wants that kill,
Because his death would seal his comrades' fate;
Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill
Those polar waters, dark and desolate.
Equal to every trial, every fate,

He stands, until spring, tardy with relief,
Unlocks the icy gate,

And the pale prisoners thread the world once

Its burning showed us Italy, And all the hopes she had to keep.

This light is out in Italy,

Her eyes
shall seek for it in vain!
For her sweet sake it spent itself,
Too early flickering to its wane,
Too long blown over by her pain.
Bow down and weep, O Italy,
Thou canst not kindle it again!

LAURA C. REDDEN (Howard Glyndon).

JOHN CHARLES FREMONT.

THY error, Fremont, simply was to act

A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact,
And, taking counsel but of common sense,
To strike at cause as well as consequence.
O, never yet since Roland wound his horn
At Roncesvalles has a blast been blown
Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own,
Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn!
It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,
To flatter treason, and avoid offence

To that Dark Power whose underlying crime
Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence.
But, if thine be the fate of all who break

The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their

years

Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make
A lane for freedom through the level spears,
Still take thou courage! God has spoken through
thee,

Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free!

The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull

ear

Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear.
Who would recall them now must first arrest
The winds that blow down from the free North-
west,

Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back
The Mississippi to its upper springs.
Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack
But the full time to harden into things.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

TO THE MEMORY OF FLETCHER
HARPER.

No soldier, statesman, hierophant, or king;
None of the heroes that you poets sing;

A toiler ever since his days began,

Simple, though shrewd, just-judging, man to

man;

| God-fearing, learned in life's hard-taught school;
By long obedience lessoned how to rule;
Through many an early struggle led to find
That crown of prosperous fortune, to be kind.
Lay on his breast these English daisies sweet!
Good rest to the gray head and the tired feet
That walked this world for seventy steadfast

years!

Bury him with fond blessings and few tears,
Or only of remembrance, not regret.
On his full life the eternal seal is set,
Unbroken till the resurrection day.
So let his children's children go their way,
Go and do likewise, leaving 'neath this sod
An honest man, "the noblest work of God."

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK.

THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ. MAY 28, 1857.

Ir was fifty years ago,

In the pleasant month of May, In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, A child in its cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, "Here is a story-book

Thy Father has written for thee."

"Come, wander with me," she said, 'Into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unread

In the manuscripts of God."

And he wandered away and away

With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day

The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,
Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreams
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, "Hark! For his voice I listen and yearn:

It is growing late and dark,

And my boy does not return!"

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.

On the isle of Penikese,
Ringed about by sapphire seas,
Fanned by breezes salt and cool,
Stood the Master with his school.
Over sails that not in vain
Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,
Line of coast that low and far
Stretched its undulating bar,
Wings aslant along the rim

Of the waves they stooped to skim,
Rock and isle and glistening bay,
Fell the beautiful white day.

Said the Master to the youth:
"We have come in search of truth,
Trying with uncertain key
Door by door of mystery;

We are reaching, through His laws,
To the garment-hem of Cause,
Him, the endless, unbegun,
The Unnameable, the One,
Light of all our light the Source,
Life of life, and Force of force.
As with fingers of the blind,
We are groping here to find
What the hieroglyphics mean
Of the Unseen in the seen,
What the Thought which underlies
Nature's masking and disguise,
What it is that hides beneath

Blight and bloom and birth and death.
By past efforts unavailing,
Doubt and error, loss and failing,
Of our weakness made aware,
On the threshold of our task

Let us light and guidance ask,
Let us pause in silent prayer!"

Then the Master in his place
Bowed his head a little space,
And the leaves by soft airs stirred,
Lapse of wave and cry of bird,
Left the solemn hush unbroken
Of that wordless prayer unspoken,
While its wish, on earth unsaid,
Rose to heaven interpreted.
As in life's best hours we hear
By the spirit's finer ear

His low voice within us, thus

The All-Father heareth us;
And his holy ear we pain
With our noisy words and vain.
Not for him our violence,
Storming at the gates of sense,
His the primal language, his
The eternal silences!

Even the careless heart was moved,
And the doubting gave assent,
With a gesture reverent,

To the Master well-beloved.
As thin mists are glorified
By the light they cannot hide,
All who gazed upon him saw,
Through its veil of tender awe,
How his face was still uplit
By the old sweet look of it,
Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,
And the love that casts out fear.
Who the secret may declare
Of that brief, unuttered prayer?
Did the shade before him come
Of the inevitable doom,
Of the end of earth so near,
And Eternity's new year?

In the lap of sheltering seas
Rests the isle of Penikese ;
But the lord of the domain
Comes not to his own again:
Where the eyes that follow fail,
On a vaster sea his sail

Drifts beyond our beck and hail !
Other lips within its bound
Shall the laws of life expound;
Other eyes from rock and shell
Read the world's old riddles well;
But when breezes light and bland
Blow from Summer's blossomed land,
When the air is glad with wings,
And the blithe song-sparrow sings,
Many an eye with his still face
Shall the living ones displace,
Many an ear the word shall seek
He alone could fitly speak.
And one name forevermore
Shall be uttered o'er and o'er
By the waves that kiss the shore,
By the curlew's whistle, sent
Down the cool, sea-scented air;
In all voices known to her
Nature own her worshipper,
Half.in triumph, half lament.
Thither love shall tearful turn,
Friendship pause uncovered there,
And the wisest reverence learn
From the Master's silent prayer.

JOHN GREENLeaf WhittieR

TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,

ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 1867.

I NEED not praise the sweetness of his song,

Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong

The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along, Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds.

With loving breath of all the winds his name

Is blown about the world, but to his friends A sweeter secret hides behind his fame,

And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim To murmur a God bless you! and there ends.

As I muse backward up the checkered years,

Wherein so much was given, so much was lost, Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen tears -But hush! this is not for profaner ears;

Let them drink molten pearls nor dream the

cost.

Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core,

As naught but nightshade grew upon earth's ground;

Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and the more Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a door, Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound.

Even as a wind-waved fountain's swaying shade
Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith shot with sun,
So through his trial faith translucent rayed,
Till darkness, half disnatured so, betrayed

A heart of sunshine that would fain o'errun.

Surely if skill in song the shears may stay,
And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss,
If our poor life be lengthened by a lay,
He shall not go, although his presence may,
And the next age in praise shall double this.

Long days be his, and each as lusty-sweet

As gracious natures find his song to be; May Age steal on with softly cadenced feet Falling in music, as for him were meet Whose choicest verse is harsher-toned than he! JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

DIED IN NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1820.

GREEN be the turf above thee,

Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.

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

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

READ AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE IN CENTRAL PARK, MAY, 1877.

AMONG their graven shapes to whom

Thy civic wreaths belong,

O city of his love! make room

For one whose gift was song.

Not his the soldier's sword to wield,
Nor his the helm of state,
Nor glory of the stricken field,
Nor triumph of debate.

In common ways, with common men,
He served his race and time
As well as if his clerkly pen

Had never danced to rhyme.

If, in the thronged and noisy mart,
The Muses found their son,
Could any say his tuneful art
A duty left undone?

He toiled and sang; and year by year
Men found their homes more sweet,
And through a tenderer atmosphere
Looked down the brick-walled street.

The Greek's wild onset Wall Street knew,
The Red King walked Broadway;
And Alnwick Castle's roses blew
From Palisades to Bay.

Fair City by the Sea! upraise

His veil with reverent hands;
And mingle with thy own the praise
And pride of other lands.

Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe
Above her hero-urns ;

And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe
The flower he culled for Burns.

O, stately stand thy palace walls,
Thy tall ships ride the seas;
To-day thy poet's name recalls
A prouder thought than these.

Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat,
Nor less thy tall fleets swim,
That shaded square and dusty street
Are classic ground through him.

Alive, he loved, like all who sing,
The echoes of his song;
Too late the tardy meed we bring,

The praise delayed so long.

Too late, alas ! - Of all who knew
The living man, to-day
Before his unveiled face, how few

Make bare their locks of gray!

Our lips of praise must soon be dumb,
Our grateful eyes be dim;

O, brothers of the days to come,
Take tender charge of him!

New hands the wires of song may sweep,
New voices challenge fame;
But let no moss of years o'ercreep
The lines of Halleck's name.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THE DUKE OF GLOSTER.

I, that am rudely stamped and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun.
King Richard III., Act i. Sc. x.

GALILEO.

The starry Galileo, with his woes.

Childe Harold, Cant. iv.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

SHAKESPEARE

BYRON.

FRAGMENTS.

CHAUCER.

As that renowmèd poet them compyled With warlike numbers and heroicke sound, Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled. Faerie Queene, Book iv. Cant, ii.

SPENSER.

THE EARL OF WARWICK.

Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick!
Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings.
King Henry VI., Part III. Actiй Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.

LORD BACON.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind! Essay on Man, Epistle IV.

POPE.