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 shine, and happy song-birds sing,

What can my evening give to morn,

My winter to thy spring!

A life not void of pure intent,

With small desert of praise or blame,

The love I felt, the good I meant,

I leave thee with my name.

1880.

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