BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE

JOHN BROWN of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day:

'I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.

But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free,

With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!'

John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die;

And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh.

Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child!

The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart;

And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart.

That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent,

And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent!

And still the May-day flowers make sweet

The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,

1 Compare the poem 'Memories,' and see Pickard's Life of Whittier, vol. i, p. 276, vol. ii, pp. 426-428, and Whittier-Land, pp. 66-67.

Tennyson said of this poem and of Whittier, 'It is a perfect poem; in some of his descriptions of scenery and wild-flowers, he would rank with Wordsworth.'

ONCE more on yonder laurelled height
The summer flowers have budded;
Once more with summer's golden light
The vales of home are flooded;
And once more, by the grace of Him
Of every good the Giver,
We sing upon its wooded rim
The praises of our river:

Its pines above, its waves below,

The west-wind down it blowing,
As fair as when the young Brissot
Beheld it seaward flowing,
And bore its memory o'er the deep,
To soothe the martyr's sadness,
And fresco, in his troubled sleep,
His prison-walls with gladness.

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We know the world is rich with streams
Renowned in song and story,
Whose music murmurs through our dreams
Of human love and glory:
We know that Arno's banks are fair,
And Rhine has castled shadows,
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr
Go singing down their meadows.

But while, unpictured and unsung
By painter or by poet,
Our river waits the tuneful tongue
And cunning hand to show it,
We only know the fond skies lean
Above it, warm with blessing,
And the sweet soul of our Undine
Awakes to our caressing.

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