Christ was his Master, and he madeHis life a gospel sweet;Plato and Pythagoras in himFound a disciple meet.The noblest and best his friends,Faithful and fond, though few;Eager to listen, learn, and payThe love and honor due.
Power and place, silver and gold,He neither asked nor sought;Only to serve his fellowmen,With heart and word and thought.A pilgrim still, but in his packNo sins to frighten or oppress;But wisdom, morals, piety,To teach, to warn and bless.
The world passed by, nor cared to takeThe treasure he could give;Apart he sat, content to waitAnd beautifully live;Unsaddened by long, lonely yearsOf want, neglect, and wrong,His soul to him a kingdom was,Steadfast, serene, and strong.
Magnanimous and pure his life,Tranquil its happy end;Patience and peace his handmaids were,Death an immortal friend.For him no monuments need rise,No laurels make his pall;The mem'ry of the good and wiseOutshines, outlives them all.
The explanation of the following poem seems to give added color to it. Mr. Alcott had a habit of cutting his own hair – a feat that can certainly be called unusual! – and it was after one of these occasions that Miss Alcott picked up the curl and pasted it on the corner of the paper upon which the poem is written.
Lines Written by Louisa M. Alcott
A little grey curl from my father's headI find unburned on the hearth,And give it a place in my diary here,With a feeling half sadness, half mirth.For the long white locks are our special pride,Though he smiles at his daughter's praise;But, oh, they have grown each year more thin,Till they are now but a silvery haze.
That wise old head! (though it does grow baldWith the knocks hard fortune may give)Has a store of faith and hope and trust,Which have taught him how to live.Though the hat be old, there's a face belowWhich telleth to those who lookThe history of a good man's life,And it cheers like a blessed book.
1A peddler of jewels, of clocks, and of books,Many a year of his wandering youth;A peddler still, with a far richer pack,His wares are wisdom and love and truth.But now, as then, few purchase or pause,For he cannot learn the tricks of trade;Little silver he wins, but that which timeIs sprinkling thick on his meek old head. But there'll come a day when the busy world,Grown sick with its folly and pride,Will remember the mild-faced peddler thenWhom it rudely had set aside;Will remember the wares he offered it onceAnd will seek to find him again,Eager to purchase truth, wisdom, and love,But, oh, it will seek him in vain.
It will find but his footsteps left behindAlong the byways of life,Where he patiently walked, striving the whileTo quiet its tumult and strife.But the peddling pilgrim has laid down his packAnd gone with his earnings away;How small will they seem, remembering the debtWhich the world too late would repay.
God bless the dear head! and crown it with yearsUntroubled and calmly serene;That the autumn of life more golden may beFor the heats and the storms that have been.My heritage none can ever dispute,My fortune will bring neither strife nor care;'Tis an honest name, 'tis a beautiful life,And the silver lock of my father's hair.
In high Olympus' sacred shadeA gift Minerva wroughtFor her beloved philosopherImmersed in deepest thought.
A shield to guard his aged breastWith its enchanted meshWhen he his nectar and ambrosia tookTo strengthen and refresh.
Long may he live to use the lifeThe hidden goddess gave,To keep unspotted to the endThe gentle, just, and brave.
December, 1887. Louisa M. Alcott.
Before closing, another unpublished poem is added to the foregoing ones. It was written by Louise Chandler Moulton upon hearing of the death of Louisa Alcott, and is in the Fruitlands collection.
Louisa M. Alcott
As the wind at play with a sparkOf fire that glows through the night;As the speed of the soaring larkThat wings to the sky his flight —So swiftly thy soul has spedIn its upward wonderful way,Like the lark when the dawn is red,In search of the shining day.Thou art not with the frozen deadWhom earth in the earth we lay,While the bearers softly tread,And the mourners kneel and pray;From thy semblance, dumb and stark,The soul has taken its flight —Out of the finite dark,Into the infinite Light.
Louise Chandler Moulton.
Old letters and old poems from the pen of some well-known author of the past that are found in unexpected places, or come to light through unlooked-for channels, have a special charm and flavor of their own. They seem to give out something peculiarly personal, like an echo from a voice that has long been silent.
This great devotion that Bronson Alcott inspired in those near to him is well known by those who have made a study of the remarkable group of men that formed a charmed literary circle in Concord in the middle of the last century, of whom Ralph Waldo Emerson was the distinguished leader; yet each additional proof gives an added warmth of color and a truer portrayal of the character of this quaint and original follower of the Greek philosophers and of his gifted family.
The writer of this article recalls one day when the late Frank B. Sanborn, well-known Sage of Concord, as he was called, was reading these poems at Fruitlands. When he came to the last line of the first poem herein given he dwelt upon it as if in deep thought. Then lifting his head, his face lighting with one of his sudden smiles, he murmured, "That sounds just like Louisa!"
1919 Clara Endicott Sears.2
вернутьсяThis was true of him in his early youth.
вернутьсяAuthor of "Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands"; "Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals"; also a novel, "The Bell-Ringer," published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Mass.; Poem, "The Unfurling of the Flag."