1. John Pierpont
The Fugitive Slave's Apostrophe to the North Star

Star of the North! though night winds drift
  The fleecy drapery of the sky
Between thy lamp and me, I lift,
  Yea, lift with hope, my sleepless eye
To the blue heights wherein thou dwellest,
And of a land of freedom tellest.

Star of the North!...

Poet: John Pierpont
Warren's Address to the American Soldiers

Stand! the ground’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
  Hope ye mercy still?
What ’s the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
  Ask it,—ye who...

Poet: John Pierpont
The Ballot

A weapon that comes down as still
  As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman’s will,
  As lightning does the will of God.
Poet: John Pierpont
The Exile at Rest

His falchion flashed along the Nile;
  His hosts he led through Alpine snows;
O’er Moscow’s towers, that shook the while,
  His eagle flag unrolled,—and froze.

Here sleeps he now, alone;—not one
  Of all the kings whose crowns he gave,
Nor sire,...

Poet: John Pierpont
The Pilgrim Fathers

The pilgrim FATHERS,—where are they?
  The waves that brought them o’er
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray
  As they break along the shore;
Still roll in the bay, as they rolled that day
  When the Mayflower moored below,
When the sea...

Poet: John Pierpont
My Child

    i cannot make him dead!
    His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study-chair;
    Yet, when my eyes, now dim
    With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes—he is not there!

    I walk my parlor floor,
    And through...

Poet: John Pierpont
Whittling

A National Portrait
THE YANKEE boy, before he ’s sent to school,
Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,
The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns, while he hears his mother’s lullaby;
His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,
Then...

Poet: John Pierpont
My Child

    I Cannot make him dead!
    His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study chair;
    Yet when my eyes, now dim
    With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes,—he is not there!

    I walk my parlor floor,
    And, through...

Poet: John Pierpont
Passing Away

Was it the chime of a tiny bell
  That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,
Like the silvery tones of a fairy’s shell
  That he winds, on the beach, so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,
And the Moon and the Fairy are watching...

Poet: John Pierpont
Warren’s Address

STAND! 1 the ground ’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
      Hope ye mercy still?
What ’s the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
      Ask it...

Poet: John Pierpont