Then lift once more thy towers on high,
And fret with spires the western sky,
To tell that God is yet with us,
And love is still miraculous!
1871.
Died at the Island of
Panay (Philippine group),
aged nineteen years.
Where ceaseless Spring her garland twines,
As sweetly shall the loved one rest,
As if beneath the whispering pines
And maple shadows of the West.
Ye mourn, O hearts of home! for him,
But, haply, mourn ye not alone;
For him shall far-off eyes be dim,
And pity speak in tongues unknown.
There needs no graven line to give
The story of his blameless youth;
All hearts shall throb intuitive,
And nature guess the simple truth.
The very meaning of his name
Shall many a tender tribute win;
The stranger own his sacred claim,
And all the world shall be his kin.
And there, as here, on main and isle,
The dews of holy peace shall fall,
The same sweet heavens above him smile,
And God’s dear love be over all
1874.
Longwood, not far from
Bayard Taylor’s birthplace in Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania,
was the home of my esteemed friends John
and Hannah Cox, whose
golden wedding was celebrated in 1874.
With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding
vow,
The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable
now.
And, sweet as has life’s vintage been through
all your pleasant past,
Still, as at Cana’s marriage-feast, the best
wine is the last!
Again before me, with your names, fair Chester’s
landscape comes,
Its meadows, woods, and ample barns, and quaint, stone-builded
homes.
The smooth-shorn vales, the wheaten slopes, the boscage
green and soft,
Of which their poet sings so well from towered Cedarcroft.
And lo! from all the country-side come neighbors,
kith and kin;
From city, hamlet, farm-house old, the wedding guests
come in.
And they who, without scrip or purse, mob-hunted,
travel-worn,
In Freedom’s age of martyrs came, as victors
now return.
Older and slower, yet the same, files in the long
array,
And hearts are light and eyes are glad, though heads
are badger-gray.
The fire-tried men of Thirty-eight who saw with me
the fall,
Midst roaring flames and shouting mob, of Pennsylvania
Hall;
And they of Lancaster who turned the cheeks of tyrants
pale,
Singing of freedom through the grates of Moyamensing
jail!
And haply with them, all unseen, old comrades, gone
before,
Pass, silently as shadows pass, within your open door,—
The eagle face of Lindley Coates, brave Garrett’s
daring zeal,
Christian grace of Pennock, the steadfast heart of
Neal.
