GO, FEEL WHAT I HAVE FELT.
[By a young lady, who was told that she was a monomaniac in her hatred of alcoholic liquors.]
Go, feel what I have felt,
Go, bear what I have borne;
Sink 'neath a blow a father dealt,
And the cold, proud world's scorn:
Thus struggle on from year to year,
Thy sole relief the scalding tear.
Go, weep as I have wept
O'er a loved father's fall;
See every cherished promise swept,
Youth's sweetness turned to gall;
Hope's faded flowers strewed all the way
That led me up to woman's day.
Go, kneel as I have knelt ;
Implore, beseech, and pray,
Strive the besotted heart to melt,
The downward course to stay ;
Be cast with bitter curse aside, ·
Thy prayers burlesqued, thy tears defied.
Go, stand where I have stood,
ADAM. Let me be your servant;
Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty:
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility.
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
And see the strong man bow;
With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood, In all your business and necessities.
And cold and livid brow;
Go, catch his wandering glance, and see
There mirrored his soul's misery.
Go, hear what I have heard, -
The sobs of sad despair,
As memory's feeling-fount hath stirred,
And its revealings there
Have told him what he might have been,
Had he the drunkard's fate foreseen.
And her crushed spirit cheer;
Thine own deep anguish hide,
Wipe from her cheek the tear;
Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow,
The gray that streaks her dark hair now,
The toil-worn frame, the trembling limb,
And trace the ruin back to him
Whose plighted faith, in early youth,
Promised eternal love and truth,
But who, forsworn, hath yielded up
This promise to the deadly cup,
And led her down from love and light,
From all that made her pathway bright,
And chained her there mid want and strife,
That lowly thing, — a drunkard's wife!
And stamped on childhood's brow, so mild,
That withering blight, -- a drunkard's child!
Go, hear, and see, and feel, and know
All that my soul hath felt and known,
O, WATER for me! Bright water for me!
Give wine to the tremulous debauchee !
It cooleth the brow, it cooleth the brain,
It maketh the faint one strong again;
It comes o'er the sense like a breeze from the sea,
All freshness, like infant purity.
O, water, bright water, for me, for me!
Give wine, give wine to the debauchee!
Fill to the brim! Fill, fill to the brim!
Let the flowing crystal kiss the rim !
My hand is steady, my eye is true,
For I, like the flowers, drink naught but dew.
O, water, bright water's a mine of wealth,
And the ores it yieldeth are vigor and health.
So water, pure water, for me, for me!
And wine for the tremulous debauchee !
Fill again to the brim! again to the brim !
For water strengtheneth life and limb.
To the days of the aged it added length;
To the might of the strong it addeth strength;
It freshens the heart, it brightens the sight;
'Tis like quaffing a goblet of morning light.
So, water, I will drink naught but thee,
Thou parent of health and energy!
ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labor bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!
Canst drink the waters of the crispèd spring?
Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
Then he that patiently want's burden bears
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labor bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!
UNDER a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp and black and long ;
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children, coming home from school,
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach;
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
TO THE HARVEST MOON. PLEASING 't is, O modest Moon! Now the night is at her noon, 'Neath thy sway to musing lie, While around the zephyrs sigh, Fanning soft the sun-tanned wheat, Ripened by the summer's heat; Picturing all the rustic's joy When boundless plenty greets his eye, And thinking soon,
O modest Moon!
How many a female eye will roam Along the road,
The last dear load of harvest home.
'Neath yon lowly roof he lies,
The husbandman, with sleep-sealed eyes: He dreams of crowded barns, and round The yard he hears the flail resound;
O, may no hurricane destroy
His visionary views of joy!
God of the winds! O, hear his humble prayer, And while the Moon of Harvest shines, thy blustering whirlwind spare!
A COUNTRY life is sweet!
In moderate cold and heat,
To walk in the air how pleasant and fair !
In every field of wheat,
The fairest of flowers adorning the bowers,
And every meadow's brow;
So that I say, no courtier may
Compare with them who clothe in gray,
And follow the useful plow.
They rise with the morning lark,
And labor till almost dark,
O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,
How thy sweet features, kind to every clime,
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of Time!
We stain thy flowers, - they blossom o'er the
dead;
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,
Waves the green plumage of thy tasseled corn;
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
Then, folding their sheep, they hasten to sleep; And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. While every pleasant park
Next morning is ringing with birds that are singing
On each green, tender bough.
With what content and merriment
Their days are spent, whose minds are bent
To follow the useful plow!
No, by these hills whose banners now displayed
In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed;
By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests
The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests;
By these fair plains the mountain circle screens,
And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, -
True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil
To crown with peace their own untainted soil;
And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind,
If her chained ban-dogs Faction shall unbind,
CLEAR the brown path to meet his coulter's These stately forms, that, bending even now,
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plow!
First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod.
Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide,
Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plow,
Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land,
The same stern iron in the same right hand,
Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run;
The sword has rescued what the plowshare won!
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; THE sunburnt mowers are in the swath
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves;
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain,
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing
clay,
The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging plowshare circles glistening round,
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.
These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings;
Swing, swing, swing!—
The towering lilies loth
Tremble, and totter, and fall;
The meadow-rue
Dashes its tassels of golden dew;
And the keen blade sweeps o'er all -
Swing, swing, swing!
The flowers, the berries, the plumèd grass,
Fall in a smothered mass;
Hastens away the butterfly;
With half their burden the brown bees hie;
And the meadow-lark shrieks distrest,
And leaves the poor younglings all in the nest.
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