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! Pleasure and pain alike I hold. I suffer with no vain pretence Of triumph over flesh and sense, Yet trust the grievous providence, How dark soe'er it seems, may tend, By ways I cannot comprehend, To some unguessed benignant end; That every loss and lapse may gain The clear-aired heights by steps of pain, And never cross is borne in vain. 1880. A NAME Addressed to my grand-nephew, Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. Jonathan Greenleaf, in A Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family, says briefly: "From all that can be gathered, it is believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who left France on account of their religious principles some time in the course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was probably translated from the French Feuillevert." The name the Gallic exile bore, St. Malo! from thy ancient mart, Became upon our Western shore Greenleaf for Feuillevert. A name to hear in soft accord Of leaves by light winds overrun, Or read, upon the greening sward Of May, in shade and sun. The name my infant ear first heard Breathed softly with a mother's kiss; His mother's own, no tenderer word My father spake than this. No child have I to bear it on; Be thou its keeper; let it take From gifts well used and duty done New beauty for thy sake. The fair ideals that outran My halting footsteps seek and find-- The flawless symmetry of man, The poise of heart and mind. Stand firmly where I felt the sway Of every wing that fancy flew, See clearly where I groped my way, Nor real from seeming knew. And wisely choose, and bravely hold Thy faith unswerved by cross or crown, Like the stout Huguenot of old Whose name to thee comes down. As Marot's songs made glad the heart Of that lone exile, haply mine May in life's heavy hours impart Some strength and hope to thine. Yet when did Age transfer to Youth The hard-gained lessons of its day? Each lip must learn the taste of truth, Each foot must feel its way. We cannot hold the hands of choice That touch or shun life's fateful keys; The whisper of the inward voice Is more than homilies. Dear boy! for whom the flowers are born, Stars s
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