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.