To My Old Schoolmaster

An epistle not after the manner of Horace.     Old friend, kind friend! lightly down     Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown!     Never be thy shadow less,     Never fail thy cheerfulness;     Care, that kills the cat, may, plough     Wrinkles in the miser's brow,     Deepen envy's spiteful frown,     Draw the mouths of bigots down,     Plague ambition's dream, and sit     Heavy on the hypocrite,     Haunt the rich man's door, and ride     In the gilded coach of pride;     Let the fiend pass! what can he     Find to do with such as thee?     Seldom comes that evil guest     Where the conscience lies at rest,     And brown health and quiet wit     Smiling on the threshold sit.     I, the urchin unto whom,     In that smoked and dingy room,     Where the district gave thee rule     O'er its ragged winter school,     Thou didst teach the mysteries     Of those weary A B C's,     Where, to fill the every pause     Of thy wise and learned saws,     Through the cracked and crazy wall     Came the cradle-rock and squall,     And the goodman's voice, at strife     With his shrill and tipsy wife,     Luring us by stories old,     With a comic unction told,     More than by the eloquence     Of terse birchen arguments     (Doubtful gain, I fear), to look     With complacence on a book!     Where the genial pedagogue     Half forgot his rogues to flog,     Citing tale or apologue,     Wise and merry in its drift     As was Phaedrus' twofold gift,     Had the little rebels known it,     Risum et prudentiam monet!     I, the man of middle years,     In whose sable locks appears     Many a warning fleck of gray,     Looking back to that far day,     And thy primal lessons, feel     Grateful smiles my lips unseal,     As, remembering thee, I blend     Olden teacher, present friend,     Wise with antiquarian search,     In the scrolls of State and Church     Named on history's title-page,     Parish-clerk and justice sage;     For the ferule's wholesome awe     Wielding now the sword of law.     Threshing Time's neglected sheaves,     Gathering up the scattered leaves     Which the wrinkled sibyl cast     Careless from her as she passed,     Twofold citizen art thou,     Freeman of the past and now.     He who bore thy name of old     Midway in the heavens did hold     Over Gibeon moon and sun;     Thou hast bidden them backward run;     Of to-day the present ray     Flinging over yesterday!     Let the busy ones deride     What I deem of right thy pride     Let the fools their treadmills grind,     Look not forward nor behind,     Shuffle in and wriggle out,     Veer with every breeze about,     Turning like a windmill sail,     Or a dog that seeks his tail;     Let them laugh to see thee fast     Tabernacled in the Past,     Working out with eye and lip,     Riddles of old penmanship,     Patient as Belzoni there     Sorting out, with loving care,     Mummies of dead questions stripped     From their sevenfold manuscript.     Dabbling, in their noisy way,     In the puddles of to-day,     Little know they of that vast     Solemn ocean of the past,     On whose margin, wreck-bespread,     Thou art walking with the dead,     Questioning the stranded years,     Waking smiles, by turns, and tears,     As thou callest up again     Shapes the dust has long o'erlain,     Fair-haired woman, bearded man,     Cavalier and Puritan;     In an age whose eager view     Seeks but present things, and new,     Mad for party, sect and gold,     Teaching reverence for the old.     On that shore, with fowler's tact,     Coolly bagging fact on fact,     Naught amiss to thee can float,     Tale, or song, or anecdote;     Village gossip, centuries old,     Scandals by our grandams told,     What the pilgrim's table spread,     Where he lived, and whom he wed,     Long-drawn bill of wine and beer     For his ordination cheer,     Or the flip that wellnigh made     Glad his funeral cavalcade;     Weary prose, and poet's lines,     Flavored by their age, like wines,     Eulogistic of some quaint,     Doubtful, puritanic saint;     Lays that quickened husking jigs,     Jests that shook grave periwigs,     When the parson had his jokes     And his glass, like other folks;     Sermons that, for mortal hours,     Taxed our fathers' vital powers,     As the long nineteenthlies poured     Downward from the sounding-board,     And, for fire of Pentecost,     Touched their beards December's frost.     Time is hastening on, and we     What our fathers are shall be,     Shadow-shapes of memory!     Joined to that vast multitude     Where the great are but the good,     And the mind of strength shall prove     Weaker than the heart of love;     Pride of graybeard wisdom less     Than the infant's guilelessness,     And his song of sorrow more     Than the crown the Psalmist wore     Who shall then, with pious zeal,     At our moss-grown thresholds kneel,     From a stained and stony page     Reading to a careless age,     With a patient eye like thine,     Prosing tale and limping line,     Names and words the hoary rime     Of the Past has made sublime?     Who shall work for us as well     The antiquarian's miracle?     Who to seeming life recall     Teacher grave and pupil small?     Who shall give to thee and me     Freeholds in futurity?     Well, whatever lot be mine,     Long and happy days be thine,     Ere thy full and honored age     Dates of time its latest page!     Squire for master, State for school,     Wisely lenient, live and rule;     Over grown-up knave and rogue     Play the watchful pedagogue;     Or, while pleasure smiles on duty,     At the call of youth and beauty,     Speak for them the spell of law     Which shall bar and bolt withdraw,     And the flaming sword remove     From the Paradise of Love.     Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore     Ancient tome and record o'er;     Still thy week-day lyrics croon,     Pitch in church the Sunday tune,     Showing something, in thy part,     Of the old Puritanic art,     Singer after Sternhold's heart     In thy pew, for many a year,     Homilies from Oldbug hear,     Who to wit like that of South,     And the Syrian's golden mouth,     Doth the homely pathos add     Which the pilgrim preachers had;     Breaking, like a child at play,     Gilded idols of the day,     Cant of knave and pomp of fool     Tossing with his ridicule,     Yet, in earnest or in jest,     Ever keeping truth abreast.     And, when thou art called, at last,     To thy townsmen of the past,     Not as stranger shalt thou come;     Thou shalt find thyself at home     With the little and the big,     Woollen cap and periwig,     Madam in her high-laced ruff,     Goody in her home-made stuff,     Wise and simple, rich and poor,     Thou hast known them all before!