Glad, his counsel straight I took—­
  I received his gift with joy;
All my former ways forsook,
  And became a minstrel-boy.

With my mountain airs to sing,
  Forward then I roamed afar,
Sweeping still the tuneful string—­
Having hope my leading star.

In the hamlets where I’ve gone,
  Groups would gather—­music-bound: 
In the cities I have drawn
  List’ners till my hopes were crowned.

Ever saving as I earned,
  I of one dear object dreamed;
To my mountain then returned,
  And our cottage-home redeemed.

Time has wiped away our tears;
  Here we dwell together blest;
All our sorrows, doubts and fears
  I have played and sung to rest.

Here my aged parents live
  Free from want, and toil, and cares;
All the bliss that earth can give
  Deem they in this home of theirs.

Life’s night-shades fast o’er them creep;
  All their wrongs have been forgiven—­
They have but to fall asleep
  In their cot, to wake in heaven.

Gentle friend, dost thou inquire
  What’s the lineage whence I came? 
Jesse is my shepherd sire—­
  David-Jesse is my name!

=The Veteran and the Child=.

“Come, grandfather, show how you carried your gun
To the field, where America’s freedom was won,
Or bore your old sword, which you say was new then,
When you rose to command, and led forward your men;
And tell how you felt with the balls whizzing by,
Where the wounded fell round you, to bleed and to die!”

The prattler had stirred, in the veteran’s breast,
The embers of fire that had long been at rest. 
The blood of his youth rushed anew through his veins;
The soldier returned to his weary campaigns;
His perilous battles at once fighting o’er,
While the soul of nineteen lit the eye of four-score.

“I carried my musket, as one that must be
But loosed from the hold of the dead, or the free! 
And fearless I lifted my good, trusty sword,
In the hand of a mortal, the strength of the Lord! 
In battle, my vital flame freely I felt
Should go, but the chains of my country to melt!

“I sprinkled my blood upon Lexington’s sod,
And Charlestown’s green height to the war-drum I trod. 
From the fort, on the Hudson, our guns I depressed,
The proud coming sail of the foe to arrest. 
I stood at Stillwater, the Lakes and White Plains,
And offered for freedom to empty my veins!

“Dost now ask me, child, since thou hear’st here I’ve been,
Why my brow is so furrowed, my locks white and thin—­
Why this faded eye cannot go by the line,
Trace out little beauties, and sparkle like thine;
Or why so unstable this tremulous knee,
Who bore ‘sixty years since,’ such perils for thee?

“What! sobbing so quick? are the tears going to start? 
Come! lean thy young head on thy grandfather’s heart! 
It has not much longer to glow with the joy
I feel thus to clasp thee, so noble a boy! 
But when in earth’s bosom it long has been cold,
A man, thou’lt recall, what, a babe, thou art told.”