Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms.

On earth I dream; – I die to be:

Time! shake not thy bald head at me.

I challenge thee to hurry past,

Or for my turn to fly too fast.

Think me not numbed or halt with age,

Or cares that earth to earth engage,

Caught with love’s cord of twisted beams,

Or mired by climate’s gross extremes.

I tire of shams, I rush to Be,

I pass with yonder comet free, –

Pass with the comet into space

Which mocks thy æons to embrace;

Æons which tardily unfold

Realm beyond realm, – extent untold;

No early morn, no evening late, –

Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate,

Whose shining sons, too great for fame,

Never heard thy weary name;

Nor lives the tragic bard to say

How drear the part I held in one,

How lame the other limped away.

HYMN
Sung at the Second Church, Boston, at the
Ordination of Rev. Chandler Robbins

We love the venerable house

Our fathers built to God; –

In heaven are kept their grateful vows,

Their dust endears the sod.

Here holy thoughts a light have shed

From many a radiant face,

And prayers of humble virtue made

The perfume of the place.

And anxious hearts have pondered here

The mystery of life,

And prayed the eternal Light to clear

Their doubts, and aid their strife.

From humble tenements around

Came up the pensive train,

And in the church a blessing found

That filled their homes again;

For faith and peace and mighty love

That from the Godhead flow,

Showed them the life of Heaven above

Springs from the life below.

They live with God; their homes are dust;

Yet here their children pray,

And in this fleeting lifetime trust

To find the narrow way.

On him who by the altar stands,

On him thy blessing fall,

Speak through his lips thy pure commands,

Thou heart that lovest all.

CUPIDO

The solid, solid universe

Is pervious to Love;

With bandaged eyes he never errs,

Around, below, above.

His blinding light

He flingeth white

On God’s and Satan’s brood,

And reconciles

By mystic wiles

The evil and the good.

BOSTON
Sicut patribus, sit Deus nobis

Read in Faneuil Hall, on December 16, 1873, on the Centennial Anniversary of the Destruction of the Tea in Boston Harbor

The rocky nook with hill-tops three

Looked eastward from the farms,

And twice each day the flowing sea

Took Boston in its arms;

The men of yore were stout and poor,

And sailed for bread to every shore.

And where they went on trade intent

They did what freemen can,

Their dauntless ways did all men praise,

The merchant was a man.

The world was made for honest trade, –

To plant and eat be none afraid.

The waves that rocked them on the deep

To them their secret told;

Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep,

‘Like us be free and bold!’

The honest waves refuse to slaves