Three Unpublished Poems

A LITTLE GREY CURL

A little grey curl from my father's head
I find unburned on the hearth,
And give it a place in my diary here,
With a feeling half sadness, half mirth.
For the long white locks are our special pride,
Though he smiles at his daughter's praise;
But, oh, they have grown each year more thin,
Till they are now but a silvery haze.

That wise old head! (though it does grow bald
With the knocks hard fortune may give)
Has a store of faith and hope and trust,
Which have taught him how to live.
Though the hat be old, there's a face below
Which telleth to those who look
The history of a good man's life,
And it cheers like a blessed book.

[1 - This was true of him in his early youth.]A peddler of jewels, of clocks, and of books,
Many a year of his wandering youth;
A peddler still, with a far richer pack,
His wares are wisdom and love and truth.
But now, as then, few purchase or pause,
For he cannot learn the tricks of trade;
Little silver he wins, but that which time
Is sprinkling thick on his meek old head.

But there'll come a day when the busy world,
Grown sick with its folly and pride,
Will remember the mild-faced peddler then
Whom it rudely had set aside;
Will remember the wares he offered it once
And will seek to find him again,
Eager to purchase truth, wisdom, and love,
But, oh, it will seek him in vain.

It will find but his footsteps left behind
Along the byways of life,
Where he patiently walked, striving the while
To quiet its tumult and strife.
But the peddling pilgrim has laid down his pack
And gone with his earnings away;
How small will they seem, remembering the debt
Which the world too late would repay.

God bless the dear head! and crown it with years
Untroubled and calmly serene;
That the autumn of life more golden may be
For the heats and the storms that have been.
My heritage none can ever dispute,
My fortune will bring neither strife nor care;
'Tis an honest name, 'tis a beautiful life,
And the silver lock of my father's hair.

TO PAPA

In high Olympus' sacred shade
A gift Minerva wrought
For her beloved philosopher
Immersed in deepest thought.

A shield to guard his aged breast
With its enchanted mesh
When he his nectar and ambrosia took
To strengthen and refresh.

Long may he live to use the life
The hidden goddess gave,
To keep unspotted to the end
The gentle, just, and brave.

    December, 1887. Louisa M. Alcott.
Before closing, another unpublished poem is added to the foregoing ones. It was written by Louise Chandler Moulton upon hearing of the death of Louisa Alcott, and is in the Fruitlands collection.

Louisa M. Alcott

IN MEMORIAM

As the wind at play with a spark
Of fire that glows through the night;
As the speed of the soaring lark
That wings to the sky his flight —
So swiftly thy soul has sped
In its upward wonderful way,
Like the lark when the dawn is red,
In search of the shining day.
Thou art not with the frozen dead
Whom earth in the earth we lay,
While the bearers softly tread,
And the mourners kneel and pray;
From thy semblance, dumb and stark,
The soul has taken its flight —
Out of the finite dark,
Into the infinite Light.

    Louise Chandler Moulton.
Old letters and old poems from the pen of some well-known author of the past that are found in unexpected places, or come to light through unlooked-for channels, have a special charm and flavor of their own. They seem to give out something peculiarly personal, like an echo from a voice that has long been silent.