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(Excerpt)
ITS windows flashing to the sky, | |
| Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, | |
| Far down the vale, my friend and I | |
| Beheld the old and quiet town: | |
| The ghostly sails that out at sea | 5 |
| Flapped their white wings of mystery, | |
| The beaches glimmering in the sun, | |
| And the low wooded capes that run | |
| Into the sea-mist north and south; | |
| The sand-bluffs at the river’s mouth; | 10 |
| The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, | |
| The foam-line of the harbor-bar. | |
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| Over the woods and meadow-lands | |
| A crimson-tinted shadow lay | |
| Of clouds through which the setting day | 15 |
| Flung a slant glory far away. | |
| It glittered on the wet sea-sands, | |
| It flamed upon the city’s panes, | |
| Smote the white sails of ships that wore | |
| Outward or in, and glided o’er | 20 |
| The steeples with their veering vanes! | |
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| Awhile my friend with rapid search | |
| O’erran the landscape. “Yonder spire | |
| Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire; | |
| What is it, pray?” “The Whitefield Church! | 25 |
| Walled about by its basement stones, | |
| There rest the marvellous prophet’s bones.” | |
| Then as our homeward way we walked, | |
| Of the great preacher’s life we talked; | |
| And through the mystery of our theme | 30 |
| The outward glory seemed to stream, | |
| And Nature’s self interpreted | |
| The doubtful record of the dead; | |
| And every level beam that smote | |
| The sails upon the dark afloat, | 35 |
| A symbol of the light became | |
| Which touched the shadows of our blame | |
| With tongues of Pentecostal flame. * * * * * | |
| Under the church of Federal Street, | |
| Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, | 40 |
| Walled about by its basement stones, | |
| Lie the marvellous preacher’s bones. | |
| No saintly honors to them are shown, | |
| No sign nor miracle have they known; | |
| But he who passes the ancient church | 45 |
| Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, | |
| And ponders the wonderful life of him | |
| Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. | |
| Long shall the traveller strain his eye | |
| From the railroad car, as it plunges by, | 50 |
| And the vanishing town behind him search | |
| For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church; | |
| And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade | |
| And fashion and folly and pleasure laid, | |
| By the thought of that life of pure intent, | 55 |
| That voice of warning yet eloquent, | |
| Of one on the errands of angels sent. | |
| And if where he labored the flood of sin | |
| Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in, | |
| And over a life of time and sense | 60 |
| The church-spires lift their vain defence, | |
| As if to scatter the bolts of God | |
| With the points of Calvin’s thunder-rod,— | |
| Still, as the gem of its civic crown, | |
| Precious beyond the world’s renown, | 65 |
| His memory hallows the ancient town! | |
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