Personal Poems, Complete






TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.

AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE

These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England.

     Old friend, kind friend! lightly down
     Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown!
     Never be thy shadow less,
     Never fail thy cheerfulness;
     Care, that kills the cat, may, plough
     Wrinkles in the miser's brow,
     Deepen envy's spiteful frown,
     Draw the mouths of bigots down,
     Plague ambition's dream, and sit
     Heavy on the hypocrite,
     Haunt the rich man's door, and ride
     In the gilded coach of pride;—
     Let the fiend pass!—what can he
     Find to do with such as thee?
     Seldom comes that evil guest
     Where the conscience lies at rest,
     And brown health and quiet wit
     Smiling on the threshold sit.

     I, the urchin unto whom,
     In that smoked and dingy room,
     Where the district gave thee rule
     O'er its ragged winter school,
     Thou didst teach the mysteries
     Of those weary A B C's,—
     Where, to fill the every pause
     Of thy wise and learned saws,
     Through the cracked and crazy wall
     Came the cradle-rock and squall,
     And the goodman's voice, at strife
     With his shrill and tipsy wife,
     Luring us by stories old,
     With a comic unction told,
     More than by the eloquence
     Of terse birchen arguments
     (Doubtful gain, I fear), to look
     With complacence on a book!—
     Where the genial pedagogue
     Half forgot his rogues to flog,
     Citing tale or apologue,
     Wise and merry in its drift
     As was Phaedrus' twofold gift,
     Had the little rebels known it,
     Risum et prudentiam monet!
     I,—the man of middle years,
     In whose sable locks appears
     Many a warning fleck of gray,—
     Looking back to that far day,
     And thy primal lessons, feel
     Grateful smiles my lips unseal,
     As, remembering thee, I blend
     Olden teacher, present friend,
     Wise with antiquarian search,
     In the scrolls of State and Church
     Named on history's title-page,
     Parish-clerk and justice sage;
     For the ferule's wholesome awe
     Wielding now the sword of law.

     Threshing Time's neglected sheaves,
     Gathering up the scattered leaves
     Which the wrinkled sibyl cast
     Careless from her as she passed,—
     Twofold citizen art thou,
     Freeman of the past and now.
     He who bore thy name of old
     Midway in the heavens did hold
     Over Gibeon moon and sun;
     Thou hast bidden them backward run;
     Of to-day the present ray
     Flinging over yesterday!

     Let the busy ones deride
     What I deem of right thy pride
     Let the fools their treadmills grind,
     Look not forward nor behind,
     Shuffle in and wriggle out,
     Veer with every breeze about,
     Turning like a windmill sail,
     Or a dog that seeks his tail;
     Let them laugh to see thee fast
     Tabernacled in the Past,
     Working out with eye and lip,
     Riddles of old penmanship,
     Patient as Belzoni there
     Sorting out, with loving care,
     Mummies of dead questions stripped
     From their sevenfold manuscript.

     Dabbling, in their noisy way,
     In the puddles of to-day,
     Little know they of that vast
     Solemn ocean of the past,
     On whose margin, wreck-bespread,
     Thou art walking with the dead,
     Questioning the stranded years,
     Waking smiles, by turns, and tears,
     As thou callest up again
     Shapes the dust has long o'erlain,—
     Fair-haired woman, bearded man,
     Cavalier and Puritan;
     In an age whose eager view
     Seeks but present things, and new,
     Mad for party, sect and gold,
     Teaching reverence for the old.

     On that shore, with fowler's tact,
     Coolly bagging fact on fact,
     Naught amiss to thee can float,
     Tale, or song, or anecdote;
     Village gossip, centuries old,
     Scandals by our grandams told,
     What the pilgrim's table spread,
     Where he lived, and whom he wed,
     Long-drawn bill of wine and beer
     For his ordination cheer,
     Or the flip that wellnigh made
     Glad his funeral cavalcade;
     Weary prose, and poet's lines,
     Flavored by their age, like wines,
     Eulogistic of some quaint,
     Doubtful, puritanic saint;
     Lays that quickened husking jigs,
     Jests that shook grave periwigs,
     When the parson had his jokes
     And his glass, like other folks;
     Sermons that, for mortal hours,
     Taxed our fathers' vital powers,
     As the long nineteenthlies poured
     Downward from the sounding-board,
     And, for fire of Pentecost,
     Touched their beards December's frost.

     Time is hastening on, and we
     What our fathers are shall be,—
     Shadow-shapes of memory!
     Joined to that vast multitude
     Where the great are but the good,
     And the mind of strength shall prove
     Weaker than the heart of love;
     Pride of graybeard wisdom less
     Than the infant's guilelessness,
     And his song of sorrow more
     Than the crown the Psalmist wore
     Who shall then, with pious zeal,
     At our moss-grown thresholds kneel,
     From a stained and stony page
     Reading to a careless age,
     With a patient eye like thine,
     Prosing tale and limping line,
     Names and words the hoary rime
     Of the Past has made sublime?
     Who shall work for us as well
     The antiquarian's miracle?
     Who to seeming life recall
     Teacher grave and pupil small?
     Who shall give to thee and me
     Freeholds in futurity?

     Well, whatever lot be mine,
     Long and happy days be thine,
     Ere thy full and honored age
     Dates of time its latest page!
     Squire for master, State for school,
     Wisely lenient, live and rule;
     Over grown-up knave and rogue
     Play the watchful pedagogue;
     Or, while pleasure smiles on duty,
     At the call of youth and beauty,
     Speak for them the spell of law
     Which shall bar and bolt withdraw,
     And the flaming sword remove
     From the Paradise of Love.
     Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore
     Ancient tome and record o'er;
     Still thy week-day lyrics croon,
     Pitch in church the Sunday tune,
     Showing something, in thy part,
     Of the old Puritanic art,
     Singer after Sternhold's heart
     In thy pew, for many a year,
     Homilies from Oldbug hear,
     Who to wit like that of South,
     And the Syrian's golden mouth,
     Doth the homely pathos add
     Which the pilgrim preachers had;
     Breaking, like a child at play,
     Gilded idols of the day,
     Cant of knave and pomp of fool
     Tossing with his ridicule,
     Yet, in earnest or in jest,
     Ever keeping truth abreast.
     And, when thou art called, at last,
     To thy townsmen of the past,
     Not as stranger shalt thou come;
     Thou shalt find thyself at home
     With the little and the big,
     Woollen cap and periwig,
     Madam in her high-laced ruff,
     Goody in her home-made stuff,—
     Wise and simple, rich and poor,
     Thou hast known them all before!

     1851

THE CROSS.

Richard Dillingham, a young member of the Society of Friends, died in the Nashville penitentiary, where he was confined for the act of aiding the escape of fugitive slaves.

     "The cross, if rightly borne, shall be
     No burden, but support to thee;"
     So, moved of old time for our sake,
     The holy monk of Kempen spake.

     Thou brave and true one! upon whom
     Was laid the cross of martyrdom,
     How didst thou, in thy generous youth,
     Bear witness to this blessed truth!

     Thy cross of suffering and of shame
     A staff within thy hands became,
     In paths where faith alone could see
     The Master's steps supporting thee.

     Thine was the seed-time; God alone
     Beholds the end of what is sown;
     Beyond our vision, weak and dim,
     The harvest-time is hid with Him.

     Yet, unforgotten where it lies,
     That seed of generous sacrifice,
     Though seeming on the desert cast,
     Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last.

     1852.

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