Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

588 SPRINGFIELD, 16S6-1S86.
From Southern plains whose sensuous ease
They have aroused to active industries;
From crowded cities of the eager East
Where Enterprise sits golden-fleeced;
Each prideful of his later choice,
But all avowing with accordant voice
Their loyalty, all other homes above.
To tliis the city of their earliest love,
Who, like a mild-eyed mother, at her mid-
dle age.
!
Content and cosey and serene and sage,
With every added year
Become more lovable and dear.
As all New England mothers do
Who Time to gentle treatment gently woo.
Outspreads the old Tlianksgiving cheer
Before her children guests, assured that they
With her are glad of one more homelife
holiday
And at the banquet she has spread
Sit many not " unto the mannr born,"
But to the manor warmly welcomed
The fugitives forlorn : —
And aspirants for liberty
From every yet unliberated land
Around her crowded table stand,
And she is smiling equally on all.
Nor makes distinction, at her festival,
Of race or color, rank or nationality.
The Scotsmen with their kindred gift —
New England thrift, —
With Bismarck's absentees sit side by side
Contented both to bide
With us and Freedom fortune here;
And, gladdened, draws a-uear
The sad Italian, in whose darkened eyes
The gathered gloom of ages of depression
lies
;
And haught Hungarians, ever mutinous
Against the edicts of the fateful day
That gave them to the hated Austrian sway.
Forego their fierceness here in feast with
us;
And here, the wrathful Russian refugees,
Sojourning at their ease,
Watch safely, from afar,
The cordon closing round the Czar;
And hardy sons of Switzerland
Have left their mountains grand
With tales of glory of their own to tell,
Half free at home, all free with us to dwell.
And loiterers from the land of Lafayette,
Whose gallant lance, —
(Let no American forget
On such a day as this that still uncancelled
debt) —
Stood for the sympathy and aid of France
When both were sorely needed here.
Take as of right a portion of the cheer
And strangest sequel of our strange romance.
The self-expatriated Englishman,
Withdrawing his allegiance
From service of the gentlest Queen
That ever sceptre swayed.
Has here his home in preference made,
Escaping so his part as actor in the
scene
That closes now the act America began
And, near him at the banquet table sit
(Of their parts, too, not yet acquit.
Postponing them perhaps a while)
The ousted owners of that injured isle —
Ah ! once the land of laughter, song, and
wit, —
Where only Nature now is seen to smile
The ire-ful sons of well named /r«-laud.
Compatriots of Parnell
"The king uncrowned," whose more than
sceptred hand
Is raised to retribution's ready bell.
In warning and command, —
Descendants of the Pilgrims, in your needs
They were your comrades in courageous
deeds.
Upon your every freedom-perilled plain
Their blood as freely flowed as yours;
The conquest that your peace secures
They helped you gain.
Send forth to-day across the sea
To ears that wait it wistfully
Your " God-speed Ireland to like victory! "
.\nd last, but far from least of all
Who come to share our festival.
Forgiving generously the wrong
Repaired so late, endured so long.
Sit those we have from our own slavery
released.
At such a feast
There should not be — nor shall my sum.
mons call —
One spectre of the past ; one Futured fear.
Naught should be here
;
!
—