Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By William HayesWard

630 To John Greenleaf Whittier

DEAR singer of our fathers’ day,

Who lingerest in the sunset glow,

Our grateful hearts all bid thee stay;

Bend hitherward and do not go.

Gracious thine age, thy youth was strong,

For Freedom touched thy tongue with fire:

To sing the right and fight the wrong

Thine equal hand held bow or lyre.

O linger, linger long,

Singer of song.

We beg thee stay; thy comrade star

Which later rose is earlier set;

What music and what battle-scar

When side by side the fray ye met!

Thy trumpet and his drum and fife

Gave saucy challenge to the foe

In Liberty’s heroic strife;

We mourn for him, thou must not go!

Yet linger, linger long,

Singer of song.

We cannot yield thee; only thou

Art left to us, and one beside

Whose silvered wisdom still can show

How smiles and tears together bide.

And we would bring our boys to thee,

And bid them hold in memory crowned

That they our saintliest bard did see,

The Galahad of our table round.

Then linger, linger long,

Singer of song.

The night is dark; three radiant beams

Are gone that crossed the zenith sky;

For one the water-fowl, meseems,

For two the Elmwood herons cry.

Ye twain that early rose and still

Skirt low the level west along,

Sink when ye must, to rise and fill

The morrow’s east with light and song

But linger, linger long,

Singer of song.