Personal Poems, Complete

TO J. P.

John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston.

     Not as a poor requital of the joy
     With which my childhood heard that lay of thine,
     Which, like an echo of the song divine
     At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy,
     Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,—
     Not to the poet, but the man I bring
     In friendship's fearless trust my offering
     How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see,
     Yet well I know that thou Last deemed with me
     Life all too earnest, and its time too short
     For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport;
     And girded for thy constant strife with wrong,
     Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought
     The broken walls of Zion, even thy song
     Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought!

     1843.