Works

Dedication Poem on the reception of the annex to the home for aged colored people, from the bequest of Mr. Edward T. Parker.

Outcast from her home in Syria
In the lonely, dreary wild;...

Do not cheer, for men are dying
From their distant homes in pain;
And the restless sea is darkened
By a flood of crimson rain.

Do not cheer, for anxious mothers
Wait and watch in lonely dread;...

There was grief within our household
Because of a vacant chair.
Our mother, so loved and precious,
No longer was sitting there.

Our hearts grew heavy with sorrow,
Our eyes with tears were blind,...

To comfort hearts that sigh and break,
To dry the falling tear,
Wilt thou forego the music sweet
Entrancing now thy ear?

I must return, I firmly said,
The strugglers in that sea...

Let me make the songs for the people,
Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry
Wherever they are sung.

Not for the clashing of sabres,
For carnage nor for strife;...

Say not the age is hard and cold -
I think it brave and grand;
When men of diverse sects and creeds
Are clasping hand in hand.

The Parsee from his sacred fires
Beside the Christian kneels;...

They shall see Him in the crimson flush
Of morning's early light,
In the drapery of sunset,
Around the couch of night.


When the clouds drop down their fatness,
In late and early rain,...