Out from the harbor of Amsterdam
—The Half Moon turned her prow to sea;
The coast of Norway dropped behind,
—Yet Northward still kept she
Through the drifting fog and the driving snow,
Where never before man dared to go:
“O Pilot, shall we find the strait that leads to the Eastern Sea?”
“A waste of ice before us lies—we must turn back,” said he.

Westward they steered their tiny bark,
—Westward through weary weeks they sped,
Till the cold gray strand of a stranger-land
—Loomed through the mist ahead.

Out from its fine cage flies the nightingale.
The little boy cries when he finds no more
His little bird in its bright new cage;
And in tears he says: "Who opened its door?"
And in tears he says: "Who opened its door?"
Then out in a wood he goes walking
And hears the sweet song of that fledgling.
"Come back to my garden, oh, sweet nightingale!
Come back to my garden, oh, sweet nightingale!"

Deo gracias, Anglia,
Redde pro victoria.

Our King went forth to Normandy
With grace and might of chivalry;
Ther God for him wrought mervelusly;
Wherfore England may call and cry
"Deo gracias.'

He sette a sege, the sooth for to say,
To Harfleur town with royal aray;
That town he won and made afray
That Fraunce shal rewe til Domesday:
Deo gracias.

Then went our King with alle his host
Thorough Fraunce, for all the Frenshe boast;
He spared no drede of lest ne most
Til he come to Agincourt coast:
Deo gracias.

Our youth was happy: why repine
That, like the Year's, Life's days decline?
'Tis well to mingle with the mould
When we ourselves alike are cold,
And when the only tears we shed
Are of the dying on the dead.

Our window-panes enthral our summer bees;
(To insect woes I give this little page) —
We hear them threshing in their idle rage
Those crystal floors of famine, while, at ease,
Their outdoor comrades probe the nectaries
Of flowers, and into all sweet blossoms dive;
Then home, at sundown, to the happy hive,
On forward wing, straight through the dancing flies:
For such poor strays a full-plumed wisp I keep,
And when I see them pining, worn, and vext,
I brush them softly with a downward sweep
To the raised sash — all-anger'd and perplext:

Our trust is now in thee,
Beauregard!
In thy hand the God of Hosts
Hath placed the sword;
And the glory of thy fame
Has set the world aflame—
Hearts kindle at thy name,
Beauregard!

The way that lies before
Is cold and hard;
We are led across the desert
By the Lord!
But the cloud that shines by night
To guide our steps aright,
Is the pillar of thy might,
Beauregard!

Thou hast watched the southern heavens
Evening starred,
And chosen thence thine emblems,
Beauregard;
And upon thy banner's fold

Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage,
A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
In calms, heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady as I can wish, that my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now. And, as those Isles which we
Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out

Our sorrow sends its shadow round the earth.
So brave, so true! A hero from his birth!
The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped,
The lightning's message by our tears is shaped.

Life's vanities that blossom for an hour
Heap on his funeral car their fleeting flower.
Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim,
And pours her tardy gold, to homage him.

The notes of grief to age familiar grow
Before the sad privations all must know;
But the majestic cadence which we hear
To-day, is new in either hemisphere.

WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

NOVEMBER 3, 1864

In a letter written to R. W. Gilder, February 9, 1887, Lowell characterizes this poem as " a kind of palinode to what I said of him in the Fable for Critics , which has something of youth's infallibility in it, or at any rate of youth's irresponsibility. "

Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea,
Her rudder gone, her mammast o'er the side;
Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free,

Our shepherds all
As pilgrims have departed,
Our shepherds all
Have gone to Bethlehem.
They gladly go
For they are all stout-hearted,
They gladly go —
Ah, could I go with them!

I am too lame to walk,
Boots and saddles, boots and saddles,
I am too lame to walk,
Boots and saddles, mount and ride.

A shepherd stout
Who sang a catamiaulo,
A shepherd stout
Was walking lazily.
He heard me speak
And saw me hobbling after,
He turned and said
He would give help to me.

"Here is my horse