1.
Many, many years ago,
When the months moved very slow,
Keeping time with minds of men,--
Human thought was slumbering then;
Long ago a Cottage stood
Where God's Temple rises now,
And there frowned a sullen wood
On a bleak Hill's shaggy brow,
Just above the humble dwelling:--
'Tis no fairy Tale I'm telling,
But a History of the heart,
When nature triumphed over art.
The scenery then was wild and strange,
But time and man have wrought a change.
As Thought can use the lightning's wings,
A single season often brings
Such plans of power and deeds of fame
As centuries past could never claim.
The shaggy Hill is smiling now,
Like warrior who has won the day,
And on its green, uplifted brow
The palace of a State holds sway;
And yet, like hopes that never die,
Beneath the Pile, our gaze that wins,
Roots of the sere, old forest lie
That flourished ere my Tale begins.

2.
'Nine o'clock!'--it strikes the hour,
Not the clock of the lofty tower,--
Many a conquering year must go,
Bearing its banner of bloom and blight,
Gathering its spoils of joy and wo,
Ere stands the Church on the Cottage site!
'Nine o'clock--he is not here--
I cannot check this creeping fear,
That thrills my heart at Time's death-tone,
--It strikes so loud when I'm all alone!'
She raised her eyes to the old brass clock,
Whose calm face seemed her fears to mock;
It stood in pride so stiff and tall,
As though it propped the Cottage wall,
And to and fro swung its pendulum ball.

3.
We feel there is a God above
When seeing tokens of His love,--
That angels there must be on high
When human beauty meets our eye.
And oh! how angel lovely seemed
The Lady of that Cottage home,--
It was as though some Bard had dreamed
A radiant star-nymph on him beamed,
And when he woke had found her come!

4.
As easy 'twere the nymph to bind
As tell the charm the Lady bore;
True beauty never was defined--
And features painted to the mind
Are perfect only to the blind
Who never scan the image o'er.--
Oh! very beautiful was she,
A loveliness most rare to see.
Her eyes were like th'ethereal hue
From Chimborazo's skyward view,
When stars begin to tremble through,
And not a vapor dims the blue;--
And clustering curls of soft, blond hair,
Around her throat and shoulders flow
Like morning light on mountain snow,--
And face so delicately fair!
'Twas like a lily newly blown,
Or, like breathing Parian stone,
Softened by a heart within,
Sending love-light through the skin!
Ay, the soul's transparent vase
Seemed that pure, pale, loving face.

5.
Kneeling by a cradle-bed,
On the clock she gazed in awe,--
Turning thence, her fears seemed fled
When her sleeping boy she saw;
And her beauty caught new grace,
As she smiled, a trusting smile,
Sad forebodings had given place,
Hope, like new-fledged dove, the while,
Nestled in her mother's breast
As she watched her infant's rest.

6.
'Better, ay, he'll soon be well--
Saviour-God, I bless thy name!'
Silvery sweet her accents fell,--
From her heart the blessing came.
Then she rose and gently raised
The pine-knots on the hearth that blazed;
Beneath her touch they burn so bright
Every shadow seems to flee:--
The bed's blue damask canopy,
And a tall, carved chair of ebony,
Stiff as knight in armor dight,
Were strongly painted in the light;--
And strangely mingling with them, stood,
Like humble friends, the bench of wood,
And table, shaped with axe and saw--
On which a silver flagon shone,--
None of these her notice draw;
The Lady's gaze is turned alone
On a rude shelf filled with books;
Or, as listening for his moan,
On her sleeping boy she looks.

7.
A blessing on the printer's art!
Books are the Mentors of the heart.
The burning soul, the burdened mind,
In books alone companions find.
We never speak our deepest feelings;
Our holiest hopes have no revealings,
Save in the gleams that light the face,
Or fancies that the pen may trace:
And hence to books the heart must turn,
When with unspoken thoughts we yearn;
And gather from the silent page
The just reproof, the counsel sage,
The consolation kind and true
That soothes and heals the wounded heart,
As on the broken plant the dew
Calls forth fresh leaves and buds to view,
More lovely as the old depart.

8.
And when, with gloomy fears oppressed,
The trembling-hearted fain would rest,
No opiate like a book, that charms,
By its deep spell, the mind's alarms;
Opening, as Genius has the key,
Some haunt of mirth, or mystery,
Or trusting faith, or tender love,
As vista to the heaven above,
Where the lone wandering one may come,
Refreshed and glad, as though at home;
And feel the soul has wells of joy,
Like springs that gush in cavern's gloom,
And hopes like gold without alloy,
Or diamonds buried in a tomb.

9.
But there's a fever of the soul,
Beyond this opiate control;
When the book-charm its influence loses,
The mind will wander where it chooses:
We see the page, but never heed,
Or thought is busy while we read;
And strange revealings fill the gloom--
A song of joy, or dirge of doom
Seems writ on every page we turn,
With spirit lore we fain would learn.

10.
Even thus she sat in reverie,
An open book upon her knee,
That Lady pale, while far away
Her thoughts, like truant children, stray.
Her heart--no, not her heart--went back,
'Twas memory trod the long, dim track.
On, on, like beam of light she sped,
Or thought that flies to seek the dead;
On, over the ocean's wintry foam,
Where surges heave as mountains high,
As 'twere to join the sea and sky;
And now the blesséd land is nigh--
And she has reached her childhood's home!
She sees the grand ancestral Hall,
The pictured warriors on the wall,--
There frowns a grim old ancestor,
As might have scowled the Saxon Knight,
Who perished in the fatal fight
That made Duke William 'Conqueror!'
Then came a Lady, very fair,
Even in her faded semblance there,
Companioned by a stern, dark Knight,--
Like morning shrinking back from night--
And told, like page of History,
The Talbot's genealogy;--
Told, too, how stern the sires had been--
Their harsh and haughty Norman blood;
While gentler flowed the stream within
The Saxon daughters, fair and good.
And she, the lovely dreamer there,
Like marble form in the tall, dark chair,
She was the last Lord Talbot's heir!

11.
Grace Talbot! in her pride of place
She had been called the Lady Grace.
And since her gentle mother died,--
The daughter then was only seven--
She had been taught to foster pride,
As though high birth might be allied,
Or rather was, to rank in heaven!
Her stern, cold father loved her not,
And often murmured at the lot
That gave no son to well the fame
And honors of the Talbot name.
But as his bud became a flower,
His selfish soul was gratified;
He saw her wondrous beauty's power
Would be the prop to raise his pride--
As vine the bending tree sustains,
And with its foliage hides the stains--
And she should wed, to please her sire,
A noble duke with vast estate;
Ah! her destiny was higher,
Far, far above the worldly great.

12.
'Tis well there are some minds on earth
That bear the impress of the skies,
Hearts that seem hallowed from their birth,
A pure and willing sacrifice
To lure the loving angels near
Our low abode of sin and fear,
And show the soul a title clear
To hope for immortality,
By proving what the good can be.
'Tis well for us that such a soul
Will 'scape the snare of earth's control;
That wealth, and rank, and pride in vain
Attempt o'er such a heart to reign.
And when a gentle being bears
This sweetest seal of woman's mind,
The virtues like a garland wears,
And makes her very pleasures kind,--
Then, with the lapsing years that steal
The loveliness of youth away,
Will come the graces that reveal
The angel in the form of clay.

13.
And thus the gentle Grace seemed come,
Like dove, that wandered from its home
In heaven, the olive-leaf to bring,
And harbinger the human spring;
When love shall bloom without a thorn,
And peace descend like April showers,
And hopes of bliss that gild youth's morn
Grow brightest in life's evening hours.

14.
They met--the lovely Lady Grace
And Sydney Morton met!
A scion he of the strong-souled race
Whose Bible was their Amulet;
A model of the heaven-taught man
That rose in the ranks of the Puritan!
Bold in the cause of God he stood,
Like Templar in the Holy Land;
And never Knight of princely blood
In lady's bower more bland.
His high, broad forehead, marble fair,
Told of the power of Thought within;
And strength was in his raven hair,--
But when he smiled a spell was there
That more than power or strength could win.
And to the loved and good his eye,
That glowed with purpose firm and high,
Was mild as light when storms go by:
--But when it flashed his spirit's might
Against the foes of truth and right,
'Twas like the bold from cloud of night!

15.
They met--the lovely Lady Grace
And Sydney Morton met,
As kindred stars will find their place
Within a cluster set.
They met and loved, as such hearts would,
They loved the true, the pure, the good
That each could in the other see;
They loved the charms that last for ever--
And vain it were such hearts to sever,
--True love is for eternity.

16.
The history of their truthful love,
And all that served their faith to prove,
And all the trials that befell--
These were a tale o'er long to tell.
'Tis sad to think, beneath the sun,
What deeds of darkness have been done!
What multitudes have pined and died
Through human prejudice and pride!
What prison secrets will be told
When the last Record is unrolled!
God's Record of the sins of men--
Oh! where will flee the guilty then?
Thanks be to God, one Land is free
From deeds of blood iniquity!
The 'bannered stars' have never shed
Their glory o'er a victim's head;
Nor drop of blood has flowed to dower
The fabric of the Union's power!

17.
But to our Tale--we may not here
Its strange and sudden turns make clear;
How deep within a dungeon chained
Morton was sentenced to the block,
And but one day of life remained,
When he was told, as if to mock
His sorrows, that his day of death
Would be Grace Talbot's bridal day!
(Her haughty sire had thus decreed
His pride and vengeance both to feed
Ah! well he used his parting breath,
For when the hours had passed away,
His cell and chains were found alone--
Prisoner and keeper both were gone!
And she went, too, his Grace, his wife,
His all of wealth, his more than life,
She fled with Morton over the sea--
Such was their love's sharp history.

18.
Her cottage home the sequel tells--
They reached the green Peninsula,
Where the Tri-Mountain sentinels
Looked over the broad Bay!
O glorious scene of Land and Sea!
There Morton felt that he was free;
And in his consecrating prayer,
When to the New-World's hope and faith
He pledged his race for life and death,
Besought his God, with earnest zeal,
As Moses for his brethren's weal,
That Freedom's birth-place might be THERE:
Her light go forth, till o'er the earth
All nations hailed its place of birth;
And Boston should become to them
As Liberty's Jerusalem!