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And many a jewel brave, of brilliant ray,

Dug in the far obscure Cathay

Of meditation deep

With flowers, of such as keep

Their fragrant tissues and their heavenly hues
Fresh-bathed forever in eternal dews-

The violet with her low-drooped eye,

For learned modesty,

The student snow-drop, that doth hang and pore
Upon the earth, like Science, evermore,

And underneath the clod doth grope and grope,-
The astronomer heliotrope,

That watches heaven with a constant eye,

The daring crocus, unafraid to try

(When Nature calls) the February snows,—

And patience' perfect rose.

Thus sped with helps of love and toil and thought,
Thus forwarded of faith, with hope thus fraught,
In four brief cycles round the stringent sun
This youngest sister hath her stature won.

Nay, why regard

The passing of the years? Nor made, nor marr'd,
By help or hindrance of slow Time was she :

O'er this fair growth Time had no mastery:

So quick she bloomed, she seemed to bloom at birth,

As Eve from Adam, or as he from earth.

Superb o'er slow increase of day on day,

Complete as Pallas she began her way;

Yet not from Jove's unwrinkled forehead sprung,
But long-time dreamed, and out of trouble wrung,
Fore-seen, wise-plann'd, pure child of thought and pain,
Leapt our Minerva from a mortal brain.

And here, O finer Pallas, long remain,

Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix thy reign,

And frame a fairer Athens than of yore

In these blest bounds of Baltimore,—

Here, where the climates meet

That each may make the other's lack complete,—
Where Florida's soft Favonian airs beguile

The nipping North,-where nature's powers smile,—
Where Chesapeake holds frankly forth her hands
Spread wide with invitation to all lands,-
Where now the eager people yearn to find
The organizing hand that fast may bind
Loose straws of aimless aspiration fain
In sheaves of serviceable grain,—
Here, old and new in one,

Through nobler cycles round a richer sun
O'er-rule our modern ways,

O blest Minerva of these larger days!
Call here thy congress of the great, the wise,
The hearing ears, the seeing eyes,—
Enrich us out of every farthest clime,—

Yea, make all ages native to our time,

Till thou the freedom of the city grant

To each most antique habitant

Of Fame,

Bring Shakspere back, a man and not a name,—
Let every player that shall mimic us
In audience see old godlike Æschylus,-
Bring Homer, Dante, Plato, Socrates,—
Bring Virgil from the visionary seas

Of old romance,-bring Milton, no more blind,-
Bring large Lucretius, with unmaniac mind,-

Bring all gold hearts and high resolvèd wills

To be with us about these happy hills,—

Bring old Renown

To walk familiar citizen of the town,

Bring Tolerance, that can kiss and disagree,-
Bring Virtue, Honor, Truth, and Loyalty,-
Bring Faith that sees with undissembling eyes,—
Bring all large Loves and heavenly Charities,-
Till man seem less a riddle unto man
And fair Utopia less Utopian,

And many peoples call from shore to shore,
The world has bloomed again, at Baltimore!

BALTIMORE, 1880.

TO DR. THOMAS SHEARER.

PRESENTING A PORTRAIT-BUST OF THE AUTHOR.

SINCE you, rare friend! have tied my living tongue With thanks more large than man e'er said or sung, So let the dumbness of this image be

My eloquence, and still interpret me.

BALTIMORE, 1880.

MARTHA WASHINGTON.

6%

WRITTEN FOR THE MARTHA WASHINGTON COURT

JOURNAL."

Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,
When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet

Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime
That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat,

Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes,

Doth fall along the age, like as a lane

Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries
Full many a frozen virtue warms again.
To-day I saw the pale much-burdened form
Of Charity come limping o'er the line,
And straighten from the bending of the storm

And flush with stirrings of new strength divine,
Such influence and sweet gracious impulse came
Out of the beams of thine immortal name!

BALTIMORE, February 22d, 1875.

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