Hezekiah Butterworth

Hezekiah Butterworth (December 22, 1839 – September 5, 1905) was an American author and poet.

• The voice of the Russias has spoken;
     Each serf in the Russias is free!
  Ring, bells, on the Neva and Volga,
     Ring, bells, on the Caspian Sea!
  • "Anniversary", st. 8. The Christian Union, vol. 17, no. 11 (March 13, 1878) p. 220. Revised in Zigzag Journeys in the Orient (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1881) ch. 10, p. 220

• Methinks when I stand in life's sunset,
     As I stood when we parted at school,
  I shall see the bright faces of children
     I loved in the village of Yule.
  • "The Beutiful Village of Yule", st. 9. Arthur's Lady's Home Magazine, vol. 37 (January–June 1871) p. 118 (from Youth's Companion). Revised in Zigzag Journeys in the Orient (1881) p. 189: 'scholars' instead of 'children'

• Lovely land of Palestina! he thy shores will never see,
  But, his dream fulfilled, he follows Him who walked in Galilee.
  • "Lincoln's Last Dream", st. 8. The Christian Union, vol. 29, no. 16 (April 17, 1884) p. 365. Also in Poems for Christmas, Easter, and New Year's (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1885) p. 106

• One taper lights a thousand,
     Yet shines as it has shone;
  And the humblest light may kindle
     A brighter than its own.
  Between a man of peace and war.
  • "The Taper", st. 10. Poems for Christmas, Easter, and New Year's (1885) p. xi

• Like an isle rose Monticello through the cooled and rippling trees,
  Like an isle in rippling starlight in the silence of the seas.
  Ceased the mocking-bird his singing; said the slaves with faltering breath,
  "'Tis the Third, and on the morrow Heaven will send the Angel Death."
  • "The Death of Jefferson", st. 1. Songs of History (Boston: New England Publishing Co., 1887) p. 97

• In the past his soul is living as in fifty years ago,
  Hastes again to Philadelphia, hears again the Schuylkill flow —
  Meets again the elder Adams — knowing not that far away
  He is waiting for Death's morrow, on old Massachusetts Bay;
  Meets with Hancock, young and courtly, meets with Hopkins, bent and old,
  Meets again calm Roger Sherman, fiery Lee, and Carroll bold,
  Meets the sturdy form of Franklin, meets the half a hundred men
  Who have made themselves immortal, — breathes the ancient morn again.
  • "The Death of Jefferson", sts. 2–3. Songs of History (1887) p. 98

• Reads again the words puissant, "All men are created free,"
  Claims again for man his birthright, claims the world's equality.
  • "The Death of Jefferson", st. 4. Songs of History (1887) p. 98

• The war's red flames,
  Charging Tarleton, proud Cornwallis, navies moving on the James.
  • "The Death of Jefferson", st. 7. Songs of History (1887) p. 100

• Evening in majestic shadows fell upon the fortress' walls:
  Sweetly were the last bells ringing on the James and on the Charles.
  'Mid the choruses of freedom two departed victors lay,
  One beside the blue Rivanna, one by Massachusetts Bay.
  He was gone, and night her sable curtain drew across the sky;
  Gone his soul into all nations, gone to live and not to die.
  • "The Death of Jefferson", st. 12. Songs of History (1887) p. 102

• "An empire to be lost or won!"
     And who four thousand miles will ride
     And climb to heaven the Great Divide,
  And find the way to Washington,
     Through mountain cañons, winter snows,
     O'er streams where free the north wind blows,
  Who, who will ride from Walla-Walla,
     Four thousand miles, for Oregon?
  • "Whitman's Ride for Oregon", st. 1. Songs of History (1887) p. 37

• It is natural to speak of hymns as "poems," indiscriminately, for they have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem. Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. There can be poetry without emotion, but a hymn never. A poem may argue; a hymn must not. In short to be a hymn, what is written must express spiritual feelings and desires. The music of faith, hope and charity will be somewhere in its strain.
  • The Story of the Hymns and Tunes (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1906) Introduction, p. ix — written with Theron Brown

• I healed the wound, and each morning
     It sang its old sweet strain,
  But the bird with the broken pinion
     Never soars so high again.
  • "The Bird with the Broken Wing", quoted in Ralph Davol, "Hezekiah Butterworth: A Sketch of His Personality", The New England Magazine, vol. 33, no. 5 (January 1906) p. 516. The same version is attributed to Irma B. Matthews in The American Messenger, vol. 69, no. 5 (May 1911) p. 86. A different version, "The Broken Pinion", is attributed to Butterworth in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922) p. 127, no. 15:

    Each loss has its compensation;
       There is healing for every pain;
    But the bird with the broken pinion
       Never soars so high again.