FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3874   3875   3876   3877   3878   3879   3880   3881   3882   3883   3884   3885   3886   3887   3888   3889   3890   3891   3892   3893   3894   3895   3896   3897   3898  
3899   3900   3901   3902   3903   3904   3905   3906   3907   3908   3909   3910   3911   3912   3913   3914   3915   3916   3917   >>  
ature of men who were otherwise largely endowed. The vitality of this club has depended in a great measure on its utter poverty in statutes and by-laws, its entire absence of formality, and its blessed freedom from speech-making. That holy man, Richard Baxter, says in his Preface to Alleine's "Alarm:"-- "I have done, when I have sought to remove a little scandal, which I foresaw, that I should myself write the Preface to his Life where himself and two of his friends make such a mention of my name, which I cannot own; which will seem a praising him for praising me. I confess it looketh ill-favoredly in me. But I had not the power of other men's writings, and durst not forbear that which was his due." I do not know that I have any occasion for a similar apology in printing the following lines read at a meeting of members of the Saturday Club and other friends who came together to bid farewell to Motley before his return to Europe in 1857. A PARTING HEALTH Yes, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame, Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies! In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, Where flit the dark spectres of passion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue! Let us hear the proud story that time has bequeathed From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed When the dead summer's jewels were tramp
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3874   3875   3876   3877   3878   3879   3880   3881   3882   3883   3884   3885   3886   3887   3888   3889   3890   3891   3892   3893   3894   3895   3896   3897   3898  
3899   3900   3901   3902   3903   3904   3905   3906   3907   3908   3909   3910   3911   3912   3913   3914   3915   3916   3917   >>  



Top keywords:

Though

 

Preface

 

friends

 

praising

 

freedom

 

sunsets

 

caught

 

tapestry

 

lengthens

 

glowing


sunlight

 

spectres

 

passion

 

gushed

 

alcoves

 

charnels

 

warriors

 

string

 

stoops

 

stands


sleeps

 
corselet
 

archer

 

garland

 

summer

 

breathe

 
unborn
 
pictures
 
jewels
 
slumber

beauties

 

untold

 

girdled

 

tyrants

 

prairie

 
mountain
 
pampas
 

flashes

 

summon

 

shrine


tongue

 

silent

 

heroes

 

triumphs

 
martyrs
 

unsung

 

incense

 
guardsman
 

breathed

 

bequeathed