(Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew),

255

Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send,

Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread,

Where streamed through leafy chinks the trem bling red,

Past which, in one bright trail, the hangbird's flashes

blend.

Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er, Beneath the awarded crown of victory,

260

Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer ; Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three,

Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad

That here what colleging was mine I had, — 265 It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee!

Nearer art thou than simply native earth,
My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie;
A closer claim thy soil may well put forth,
Something of kindred more than sympathy;

For in thy bounds I reverently laid away
That blinding anguish of forsaken clay,
That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky,

270

264. Collegisse juvat. Horace in his first ode says, Curriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse juvat; that is, It's a pleasure to have collected the dust of Olympus on your carriage-wheels. Mr. Lowell, helping himself to the words, says, "It's a pleasure te have been at college;" for college in its first meaning is a collection of men, as in the phrase "The college of cardinals."

That portion of my life more choice to ine

(Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) 271 Than all the imperfect residue can be; The Artist saw his statue of the soul

Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, The earthen model into fragments broke, And without her the impoverished seasons roll.

HEBE

I SAW the twinkle of white feet,
I saw the flash of robes descending;
Before her ran an influence fleet,
That bowed my heart like barley bending.

As, in bare fields, the searching bees
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
It led me on, by sweet degrees
Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.

Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
The long-sought Secret's golden gates

On musical hinges swung before me.

i saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp

Thrilling with godhood; like a lover

280

10

I sprang the proffered life to clasp ;-
The beaker fell; the luck was over.

275. The volume containing this poem was reverently dedi cated "To the ever fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche."

The Earth has drunk the vintage up;
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?
Can Summer fill the icy cup,

Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's? 20

O spendthrift haste! await the Gods;
Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;
Haste scatters on unthankful sods
The immortal gift in vain libations.

Woo,

Coy Hebe flies from those that
And shuns the hands would seize upon
Follow thy life, and she will sue
Το pour for thee the cup of honor.

THE OAK

her;

WHAT gnarlèd stretch, what depth of shade, is his! There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss!

Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring,
Which he with such benignant royalty
Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent;
All nature seems his vassal proud to be,
And cunning only for his ornament.

How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows,
An unquelled exile from the summer's throne,
Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows,
Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown.
His boughs make music of the winter air,

25

5

10

Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair 15 The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt.

How doth his patient strength the rude March wind
Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze,
And win the soil that fain would be unkind,

To swell his revenues with proud increase!
He is the gem; and all the landscape wide
(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense)
Seems but the setting, worthless all beside,
An empty socket, were he fallen thence.

So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales,
Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots

The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails

The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots?
So every year that falls with noiseless flake

Should fill old scars up on the stormward side,
And make hoar age revered for age's sake,
Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride.

So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate,

True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, So between earth and heaven stand simply great,

That these shall seem but their attendants both; For nature's forces with obedient zeal

Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel,

20

25

30

35

And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. 4C

Lord! all Thy works are lessons; each contains
Some enblem of man's all-containing soul;
Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains,
Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole?

40. See Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,

Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing.

THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION

45

"THE Commemoration services (July 21, 1865) took place in the open air, in the presence of a great assembly Prominent among the speakers were Major-General Meade the hero of Gettysburg, and Major-General Devens. The wounds of the war were still fresh and bleeding, and the interest of the occasion was deep and thrilling. The summer afternoon was drawing to its close when the poet began the recital of the ode. No living audience could for the first time follow with intelligent appreciation the delivery. of such a poem. To be sure, it had its obvious strong points and its sonorous charms; but, like all the later poems of the author, it is full of condensed thought and requires study. The reader to-day finds many passages whose force and beauty escaped him during the recital, yet the effect of the poem at the time was overpowering. The face of the poet, always singularly expressive, was on this occasion almost transfigured, — glowing, as if with an inward light. It was impossible to look away from it. Our age has furnished many great historic scenes, but this Commemoration combined the elements of grandeur and pathos, and produced an impression as lasting as life. Of the merits of the ode it is perhaps too soon to speak. In nobility of sentiment and sustained power it appears to take rank among the first in the language. To us, with the memories of the war in mind, it seems more beautiful and of a finer quality than the best of Dryden's. What the people of the coming centuries will say, who knows? We only know that the auditors,

45. A grove of oaks at Dodona, in ancient Greece, was the seat of a famous oracle.