ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS

 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM

 BY

 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM

CONTENTS:

THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIMEDEMOCRACYTHE GALLOWSSEED-TIME AND HARVESTTO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLANDTHE HUMAN SACRIFICESONGS OF LABOR DEDICATION THE SHOEMAKERS THE FISHERMEN THE LUMBERMEN THE SHIP-BUILDERS THE DROVERS THE HUSKERSTHE REFORMERTHE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELSTHE PRISONER FOR DEBTTHE CHRISTIAN TOURISTSTHE MEN OF OLDTO PIUS IX. CALEF IN BOSTONOUR STATETHE PRISONERS OF NAPLESTHE PEACE OF EUROPEASTRAEATHE DISENTHRALLEDTHE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAYTHE DREAM OF PIO NONOTHE VOICESTHE NEW EXODUSTHE CONQUEST OF FINLANDTHE EVE OF ELECTIONFROM PERUGIAITALYFREEDOM IN BRAZILAFTER ELECTIONDISARMAMENTTHE PROBLEMOUR COUNTRYON THE BIG HORN

NOTES

THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

THE Quaker of the olden time!How calm and firm and true, Unspotted by its wrong and crime, He walked the dark earth through. The lust of power, the love of gain, The thousand lures of sinAround him, had no power to stainThe purity within. 

With that deep insight which detectsAll great things in the small, And knows how each man's life affectsThe spiritual life of all, He walked by faith and not by sight, By love and not by law;The presence of the wrong or rightHe rather felt than saw. 

He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, That nothing stands alone, That whoso gives the motive, makesHis brother's sin his own. And, pausing not for doubtful choiceOf evils great or small, He listened to that inward voiceWhich called away from all. 

O Spirit of that early day, So pure and strong and true, Be with us in the narrow wayOur faithful fathers knew. Give strength the evil to forsake, The cross of Truth to bear, And love and reverent fear to makeOur daily lives a prayer!1838. 

DEMOCRACY. 

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even soto them. --MATTHEW vii. 12. 

BEARER of Freedom's holy light, Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod, The foe of all which pains the sight, Or wounds the generous ear of God!

Beautiful yet thy temples rise, Though there profaning gifts are thrown;And fires unkindled of the skiesAre glaring round thy altar-stone. 

Still sacred, though thy name be breathedBy those whose hearts thy truth deride;And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathedAround the haughty brows of Pride. 

Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time!The faith in which my father stood, Even when the sons of Lust and CrimeHad stained thy peaceful courts with blood!

Still to those courts my footsteps turn, For through the mists which darken there, I see the flame of Freedom burn, --The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!

The generous feeling, pure and warm, Which owns the right of all divine;The pitying heart, the helping arm, The prompt self-sacrifice, are thine. 

Beneath thy broad, impartial eye, How fade the lines of caste and birth!How equal in their suffering lieThe groaning multitudes of earth!

Still to a stricken brother true, Whatever clime hath nurtured him;As stooped to heal the wounded JewThe worshipper of Gerizim. 

By misery unrepelled, unawedBy pomp or power, thou seest a ManIn prince or peasant, slave or lord, Pale priest, or swarthy artisan. 

Through all disguise, form, place, or name, Beneath the flaunting robes of sin, Through poverty and squalid shame, Thou lookest on the man within. 

On man, as man, retaining yet, Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim, The crown upon his forehead set, The immortal gift of God to him. 

And there is reverence in thy look;For that frail form which mortals wearThe Spirit of the Holiest took, And veiled His perfect brightness there. 

Not from the shallow babbling fountOf vain philosophy thou art;He who of old on Syria's MountThrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's heart, In holy words which cannot die, In thoughts which angels leaned to know, Proclaimed thy message from on high, Thy mission to a world of woe. 

That voice's echo hath not died!From the blue lake of Galilee, And Tabor's lonely mountain-side, It calls a struggling world to thee. 

Thy name and watchword o'er this landI hear in every breeze that stirs, And round a thousand altars standThy banded party worshippers. 

Not, to these altars of a day, At party's call, my gift I bring;But on thy olden shrine I layA freeman's dearest offering. 

The voiceless utterance of his will, --His pledge to Freedom and to Truth, That manhood's heart remembers stillThe homage of his generous youth. Election Day, 1841

THE GALLOWS. 

Written on reading pamphlets published by clergymen against theabolition of the gallows. 

I. THE suns of eighteen centuries have shoneSince the Redeemer walked with man, and madeThe fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of stone, And mountain moss, a pillow for His head;And He, who wandered with the peasant Jew, And broke with publicans the bread of shame, And drank with blessings, in His Father's name, The water which Samaria's outcast drew, Hath now His temples upon every shore, Altar and shrine and priest; and incense dimEvermore rising, with low prayer and hymn, From lips which press the temple's marble floor, Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread cross He bore. 

II. Yet as of old, when, meekly "doing good, "He fed a blind and selfish multitude, And even the poor companions of His lotWith their dim earthly vision knew Him not, How ill are His high teachings understoodWhere He hath spoken Liberty, the priestAt His own altar binds the chain anew;Where He hath bidden to Life's equal feast, The starving many wait upon the few;Where He hath spoken Peace, His name hath beenThe loudest war-cry of contending men;Priests, pale with vigils, in His name have blessedThe unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest, Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine, And crossed its blazon with the holy sign;Yea, in His name who bade the erring live, And daily taught His lesson, to forgive!Twisted the cord and edged the murderous steel;And, with His words of mercy on their lips, Hung gloating o'er the pincer's burning grips, And the grim horror of the straining wheel;Fed the slow flame which gnawed the victim's limb, Who saw before his searing eyeballs swimThe image of their Christ in cruel zeal, Through the black torment-smoke, held mockingly to him!

III. The blood which mingled with the desert sand, And beaded with its red and ghastly dewThe vines and olives of the Holy Land;The shrieking curses of the hunted Jew;The white-sown bones of heretics, where'erThey sank beneath the Crusade's holy spear;Goa's dark dungeons, Malta's sea-washed cell, Where with the hymns the ghostly fathers sungMingled the groans by subtle torture wrung, Heaven's anthem blending with the shriek of hell!The midnight of Bartholomew, the stakeOf Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed flameWhich Calvin kindled by Geneva's lake;New England's scaffold, and the priestly sneerWhich mocked its victims in that hour of fear, When guilt itself a human tear might claim, --Bear witness, O Thou wronged and merciful One!That Earth's most hateful crimes have in Thyname been done!

IV. Thank God! that I have lived to see the timeWhen the great truth begins at last to findAn utterance from the deep heart of mankind, Earnest and clear, that all Revenge is Crime, That man is holier than a creed, that allRestraint upon him must consult his good, Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall, And Love look in upon his solitude. The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taughtThrough long, dark centuries its way hath wroughtInto the common mind and popular thought;And words, to which by Galilee's lake shoreThe humble fishers listened with hushed oar, Have found an echo in the general heart, And of the public faith become a living part. 

V. Who shall arrest this tendency? Bring backThe cells of Venice and the bigot's rack?Harden the softening human heart againTo cold indifference to a brother's pain?Ye most unhappy men! who, turned awayFrom the mild sunshine of the Gospel day, Grope in the shadows of Man's twilight time, What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest ye brood, O'er those foul altars streaming with warm blood, Permitted in another age and clime?Why cite that law with which the bigot JewRebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he knewNo evil in the Just One? Wherefore turnTo the dark, cruel past? Can ye not learnFrom the pure Teacher's life how mildly freeIs the great Gospel of Humanity?The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no moreMexitli's altars soak with human gore, No more the ghastly sacrifices smokeThrough the green arches of the Druid's oak;And ye of milder faith, with your high claimOf prophet-utterance in the Holiest name, Will ye become the Druids of our timeSet up your scaffold-altars in our land, And, consecrators of Law's darkest crime, Urge to its loathsome work the hangman's hand?Beware, lest human nature, roused at last, From its peeled shoulder your encumbrance cast, And, sick to loathing of your cry for blood, Rank ye with those who led their victims roundThe Celt's red altar and the Indian's mound, Abhorred of Earth and Heaven, a pagan brotherhood!1842. 

SEED-TIME AND HARVEST. 

As o'er his furrowed fields which lieBeneath a coldly dropping sky, Yet chill with winter's melted snow, The husbandman goes forth to sow, Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blastThe ventures of thy seed we cast, And trust to warmer sun and rainTo swell the germs and fill the grain. 

Who calls thy glorious service hard?Who deems it not its own reward?Who, for its trials, counts it less. A cause of praise and thankfulness?

It may not be our lot to wieldThe sickle in the ripened field;Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, The reaper's song among the sheaves. 

Yet where our duty's task is wroughtIn unison with God's great thought, The near and future blend in one, And whatsoe'er is willed, is done!

And ours the grateful service whenceComes day by day the recompense;The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, The fountain and the noonday shade. 

And were this life the utmost span, The only end and aim of man, Better the toil of fields like theseThan waking dream and slothful ease. 

But life, though falling like our grain, Like that revives and springs again;And, early called, how blest are theyWho wait in heaven their harvest-day!1843. 

TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND. This poem was addressed to those who like Richard Cobden and John Brightwere seeking the reform of political evils in Great Britain by peacefuland Christian means. It will be remembered that the Anti-Corn Law Leaguewas in the midst of its labors at this time. 

GOD bless ye, brothers! in the fightYe 're waging now, ye cannot fail, For better is your sense of rightThan king-craft's triple mail. 

Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban, More mighty is your simplest word;The free heart of an honest manThan crosier or the sword. 

Go, let your blinded Church rehearseThe lesson it has learned so well;It moves not with its prayer or curseThe gates of heaven or hell. 

Let the State scaffold rise again;Did Freedom die when Russell died?Forget ye how the blood of VaneFrom earth's green bosom cried?

The great hearts of your olden timeAre beating with you, full and strong;All holy memories and sublimeAnd glorious round ye throng. 

The bluff, bold men of RunnymedeAre with ye still in times like these;The shades of England's mighty dead, Your cloud of witnesses!

The truths ye urge are borne abroadBy every wind and every tide;The voice of Nature and of GodSpeaks out upon your side. 

The weapons which your hands have foundAre those which Heaven itself has wrought, Light, Truth, and Love; your battle-groundThe free, broad field of Thought. 

No partial, selfish purpose breaksThe simple beauty of your plan, Nor lie from throne or altar shakesYour steady faith in man. 

The languid pulse of England startsAnd bounds beneath your words of power, The beating of her million heartsIs with you at this hour!

O ye who, with undoubting eyes, Through present cloud and gathering storm, Behold the span of Freedom's skies, And sunshine soft and warm;

Press bravely onward! not in vainYour generous trust in human-kind;The good which bloodshed could not gainYour peaceful zeal shall find. 

Press on! the triumph shall be wonOf common rights and equal laws, The glorious dream of Harrington, And Sidney's good old cause. 

Blessing the cotter and the crown, Sweetening worn Labor's bitter cup;And, plucking not the highest down, Lifting the lowest up. 

Press on! and we who may not shareThe toil or glory of your fightMay ask, at least, in earnest prayer, God's blessing on the right!1843. 

THE HUMAN SACRIFICE. 

Some leading sectarian papers had lately published the letter of aclergyman, giving an account of his attendance upon a criminal (who hadcommitted murder during a fit of intoxication), at the time of hisexecution, in western New York. The writer describes the agony of thewretched being, his abortive attempts at prayer, his appeal for life, his fear of a violent death; and, after declaring his belief that thepoor victim died without hope of salvation, concludes with a warm eulogyupon the gallows, being more than ever convinced of its utility by theawful dread and horror which it inspired. 

I. FAR from his close and noisome cell, By grassy lane and sunny stream, Blown clover field and strawberry dell, And green and meadow freshness, fellThe footsteps of his dream. Again from careless feet the dewOf summer's misty morn he shook;Again with merry heart he threwHis light line in the rippling brook. Back crowded all his school-day joys;He urged the ball and quoit again, And heard the shout of laughing boysCome ringing down the walnut glen. Again he felt the western breeze, With scent of flowers and crisping hay;And down again through wind-stirred treesHe saw the quivering sunlight play. An angel in home's vine-hung door, He saw his sister smile once more;Once more the truant's brown-locked headUpon his mother's knees was laid, And sweetly lulled to slumber there, With evening's holy hymn and prayer!

II. He woke. At once on heart and brainThe present Terror rushed again;Clanked on his limbs the felon's chainHe woke, to hear the church-tower tellTime's footfall on the conscious bell, And, shuddering, feel that clanging dinHis life's last hour had ushered in;To see within his prison-yard, Through the small window, iron barred, The gallows shadow rising dimBetween the sunrise heaven and him;A horror in God's blessed air;A blackness in his morning light;Like some foul devil-altar thereBuilt up by demon hands at night. And, maddened by that evil sight, Dark, horrible, confused, and strange, A chaos of wild, weltering change, All power of check and guidance gone, Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on. In vain he strove to breathe a prayer, In vain he turned the Holy Book, He only heard the gallows-stairCreak as the wind its timbers shook. No dream for him of sin forgiven, While still that baleful spectre stood, With its hoarse murmur, "Blood for Blood!"Between him and the pitying Heaven. 

III. Low on his dungeon floor he knelt, And smote his breast, and on his chain, Whose iron clasp he always felt, His hot tears fell like rain;And near him, with the cold, calm lookAnd tone of one whose formal part, Unwarmed, unsoftened of the heart, Is measured out by rule and book, With placid lip and tranquil blood, The hangman's ghostly ally stood, Blessing with solemn text and wordThe gallows-drop and strangling cord;Lending the sacred Gospel's aweAnd sanction to the crime of Law. 

IV. He saw the victim's tortured brow, The sweat of anguish starting there, The record of a nameless woeIn the dim eye's imploring stare, Seen hideous through the long, damp hair, --Fingers of ghastly skin and boneWorking and writhing on the stone!And heard, by mortal terror wrungFrom heaving breast and stiffened tongue, The choking sob and low hoarse prayer;As o'er his half-crazed fancy cameA vision of the eternal flame, Its smoking cloud of agonies, Its demon-worm that never dies, The everlasting rise and fallOf fire-waves round the infernal wall;While high above that dark red flood, Black, giant-like, the gallows stood;Two busy fiends attending thereOne with cold mocking rite and prayer, The other with impatient grasp, Tightening the death-rope's strangling clasp. 

V. The unfelt rite at length was done, The prayer unheard at length was said, An hour had passed: the noonday sunSmote on the features of the dead!And he who stood the doomed beside, Calm gauger of the swelling tideOf mortal agony and fear, Heeding with curious eye and earWhate'er revealed the keen excessOf man's extremest wretchednessAnd who in that dark anguish sawAn earnest of the victim's fate, The vengeful terrors of God's law, The kindlings of Eternal hate, The first drops of that fiery rainWhich beats the dark red realm of pain, Did he uplift his earnest criesAgainst the crime of Law, which gaveHis brother to that fearful grave, Whereon Hope's moonlight never lies, And Faith's white blossoms never waveTo the soft breath of Memory's sighs;Which sent a spirit marred and stained, By fiends of sin possessed, profaned, In madness and in blindness stark, Into the silent, unknown dark?No, from the wild and shrinking dread, With which be saw the victim ledBeneath the dark veil which dividesEver the living from the dead, And Nature's solemn secret hides, The man of prayer can only drawNew reasons for his bloody law;New faith in staying Murder's handBy murder at that Law's command;New reverence for the gallows-rope, As human nature's latest hope;Last relic of the good old time, When Power found license for its crime, And held a writhing world in checkBy that fell cord about its neck;Stifled Sedition's rising shout, Choked the young breath of Freedom out, And timely checked the words which sprungFrom Heresy's forbidden tongue;While in its noose of terror bound, The Church its cherished union found, Conforming, on the Moslem plan, The motley-colored mind of man, Not by the Koran and the Sword, But by the Bible and the Cord. 

VI. O Thou at whose rebuke the graveBack to warm life its sleeper gave, Beneath whose sad and tearful glanceThe cold and changed countenanceBroke the still horror of its trance, And, waking, saw with joy above, A brother's face of tenderest love;Thou, unto whom the blind and lame, The sorrowing and the sin-sick came, And from Thy very garment's hemDrew life and healing unto them, The burden of Thy holy faithWas love and life, not hate and death;Man's demon ministers of pain, The fiends of his revenge, were sentFrom thy pure Gospel's elementTo their dark home again. Thy name is Love! What, then, is he, Who in that name the gallows rears, An awful altar built to Thee, With sacrifice of blood and tears?Oh, once again Thy healing layOn the blind eyes which knew Thee not, And let the light of Thy pure dayMelt in upon his darkened thought. Soften his hard, cold heart, and showThe power which in forbearance lies, And let him feel that mercy nowIs better than old sacrifice. 

VII. As on the White Sea's charmed shore, The Parsee sees his holy hill [10]With dunnest smoke-clouds curtained o'er, Yet knows beneath them, evermore, The low, pale fire is quivering still;So, underneath its clouds of sin, The heart of man retaineth yetGleams of its holy origin;And half-quenched stars that never set, Dim colors of its faded bow, And early beauty, linger there, And o'er its wasted desert blowFaint breathings of its morning air. Oh, never yet upon the scrollOf the sin-stained, but priceless soul, Hath Heaven inscribed "Despair!"Cast not the clouded gem away, Quench not the dim but living ray, --My brother man, Beware!With that deep voice which from the skiesForbade the Patriarch's sacrifice, God's angel cries, Forbear1843

SONGS OF LABOR. 

DEDICATION. 

Prefixed to the volume of which the group of six poems following thisprelude constituted the first portion. 

I WOULD the gift I offer hereMight graces from thy favor take, And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere, On softened lines and coloring, wearThe unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake. 

Few leaves of Fancy's spring remainBut what I have I give to thee, The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's plain, And paler flowers, the latter rainCalls from the westering slope of life's autumnal lea. 

Above the fallen groves of green, Where youth's enchanted forest stood, Dry root and mossed trunk between, A sober after-growth is seen, As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood!

Yet birds will sing, and breezes playTheir leaf-harps in the sombre tree;And through the bleak and wintry dayIt keeps its steady green alway, --So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee. 

Art's perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse;But for the dull and flowerless weedSome healing virtue still must plead, And the rough ore must find its honors in its use. 

So haply these, my simple laysOf homely toil, may serve to showThe orchard bloom and tasselled maizeThat skirt and gladden duty's ways, The unsung beauty hid life's common things below. 

Haply from them the toiler, bentAbove his forge or plough, may gain, A manlier spirit of content, And feel that life is wisest spentWhere the strong working hand makes strong theworking brain. 

The doom which to the guilty pairWithout the walls of Eden came, Transforming sinless ease to careAnd rugged toil, no more shall bearThe burden of old crime, or mark of primal shame. 

A blessing now, a curse no more;Since He, whose name we breathe with awe, The coarse mechanic vesture wore, A poor man toiling with the poor, In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law. 1850. 

THE SHOEMAKERS. 

Ho! workers of the old time styledThe Gentle Craft of LeatherYoung brothers of the ancient guild, Stand forth once more together!Call out again your long array, In the olden merry mannerOnce more, on gay St. Crispin's day, Fling out your blazoned banner!

Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stoneHow falls the polished hammerRap, rap I the measured sound has grownA quick and merry clamor. Now shape the sole! now deftly curlThe glossy vamp around it, And bless the while the bright-eyed girlWhose gentle fingers bound it!

For you, along the Spanish mainA hundred keels are ploughing;For you, the Indian on the plainHis lasso-coil is throwing;For you, deep glens with hemlock darkThe woodman's fire is lighting;For you, upon the oak's gray bark, The woodman's axe is smiting. 

For you, from Carolina's pineThe rosin-gum is stealing;For you, the dark-eyed FlorentineHer silken skein is reeling;For you, the dizzy goatherd roamsHis rugged Alpine ledges;For you, round all her shepherd homes, Bloom England's thorny hedges. 

The foremost still, by day or night, On moated mound or heather, Where'er the need of trampled rightBrought toiling men together;Where the free burghers from the wallDefied the mail-clad master, Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, No craftsmen rallied faster. 

Let foplings sneer, let fools deride, Ye heed no idle scorner;Free hands and hearts are still your pride, And duty done, your honor. Ye dare to trust, for honest fame, The jury Time empanels, And leave to truth each noble nameWhich glorifies your annals. 

Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, In strong and hearty German;And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit, And patriot fame of Sherman;Still from his book, a mystic seer, The soul of Behmen teaches, And England's priestcraft shakes to hearOf Fox's leathern breeches. 

The foot is yours; where'er it falls, It treads your well-wrought leather, On earthen floor, in marble halls, On carpet, or on heather. Still there the sweetest charm is foundOf matron grace or vestal's, As Hebe's foot bore nectar roundAmong the old celestials. 

Rap, rap!--your stout and bluff brogan, With footsteps slow and weary, May wander where the sky's blue spanShuts down upon the prairie. On Beauty's foot your slippers glance, By Saratoga's fountains, Or twinkle down the summer danceBeneath the Crystal Mountains!

The red brick to the mason's hand, The brown earth to the tiller's, The shoe in yours shall wealth command, Like fairy Cinderella's!As they who shunned the household maidBeheld the crown upon her, So all shall see your toil repaidWith hearth and home and honor. 

Then let the toast be freely quaffed, In water cool and brimming, --"All honor to the good old Craft, Its merry men and women!"Call out again your long array, In the old time's pleasant mannerOnce more, on gay St. Crispin's day, Fling out his blazoned banner!1845. 

THE FISHERMEN. 

HURRAH! the seaward breezesSweep down the bay amain;Heave up, my lads, the anchor!Run up the sail againLeave to the lubber landsmenThe rail-car and the steed;The stars of heaven shall guide us, The breath of heaven shall speed. 

From the hill-top looks the steeple, And the lighthouse from the sand;And the scattered pines are wavingTheir farewell from the land. One glance, my lads, behind us, For the homes we leave one sigh, Ere we take the change and chancesOf the ocean and the sky. 

Now, brothers, for the icebergsOf frozen Labrador, Floating spectral in the moonshine, Along the low, black shore!Where like snow the gannet's feathersOn Brador's rocks are shed, And the noisy murr are flying, Like black scuds, overhead;

Where in mist tie rock is hiding, And the sharp reef lurks below, And the white squall smites in summer, And the autumn tempests blow;Where, through gray and rolling vapor, From evening unto morn, A thousand boats are hailing, Horn answering unto horn. 

Hurrah! for the Red Island, With the white cross on its crownHurrah! for Meccatina, And its mountains bare and brown!Where the Caribou's tall antlersO'er the dwarf-wood freely toss, And the footstep of the MickmackHas no sound upon the moss. 

There we'll drop our lines, and gatherOld Ocean's treasures in, Where'er the mottled mackerelTurns up a steel-dark fin. The sea's our field of harvest, Its scaly tribes our grain;We'll reap the teeming watersAs at home they reap the plain. 

Our wet hands spread the carpet, And light the hearth of home;From our fish, as in the old time, The silver coin shall come. As the demon fled the chamberWhere the fish of Tobit lay, So ours from all our dwellingsShall frighten Want away. 

Though the mist upon our jacketsIn the bitter air congeals, And our lines wind stiff and slowlyFrom off the frozen reels;Though the fog be dark around us, And the storm blow high and loud, We will whistle down the wild wind, And laugh beneath the cloud!

In the darkness as in daylight, On the water as on land, God's eye is looking on us, And beneath us is His hand!Death will find us soon or later, On the deck or in the cot;And we cannot meet him betterThan in working out our lot. 

Hurrah! hurrah! the west-windComes freshening down the bay, The rising sails are filling;Give way, my lads, give way!Leave the coward landsman clingingTo the dull earth, like a weed;The stars of heaven shall guide us, The breath of heaven shall speed!1845. 

THE LUMBERMEN. 

WILDLY round our woodland quartersSad-voiced Autumn grieves;Thickly down these swelling watersFloat his fallen leaves. Through the tall and naked timber, Column-like and old, Gleam the sunsets of November, From their skies of gold. 

O'er us, to the southland heading, Screams the gray wild-goose;On the night-frost sounds the treadingOf the brindled moose. Noiseless creeping, while we're sleeping, Frost his task-work plies;Soon, his icy bridges heaping, Shall our log-piles rise. 

When, with sounds of smothered thunder, On some night of rain, Lake and river break asunderWinter's weakened chain, Down the wild March flood shall bear themTo the saw-mill's wheel, Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear themWith his teeth of steel. 

Be it starlight, be it moonlight, In these vales below, When the earliest beams of sunlightStreak the mountain's snow, Crisps the boar-frost, keen and early, To our hurrying feet, And the forest echoes clearlyAll our blows repeat. 

Where the crystal AmbijejisStretches broad and clear, And Millnoket's pine-black ridgesHide the browsing deerWhere, through lakes and wide morasses, Or through rocky walls, Swift and strong, Penobscot passesWhite with foamy falls;

Where, through clouds, are glimpses givenOf Katahdin's sides, --Rock and forest piled to heaven, Torn and ploughed by slides!Far below, the Indian trapping, In the sunshine warm;Far above, the snow-cloud wrappingHalf the peak in storm!

Where are mossy carpets betterThan the Persian weaves, And than Eastern perfumes sweeterSeem the fading leaves;And a music wild and solemn, From the pine-tree's height, Rolls its vast and sea-like volumeOn the wind of night;

Make we here our camp of winter;And, through sleet and snow, Pitchy knot and beechen splinterOn our hearth shall glow. Here, with mirth to lighten duty, We shall lack aloneWoman's smile and girlhood's beauty, Childhood's lisping tone. 

But their hearth is brighter burningFor our toil to-day;And the welcome of returningShall our loss repay, When, like seamen from the waters, From the woods we come, Greeting sisters, wives, and daughters, Angels of our home!

Not for us the measured ringingFrom the village spire, Not for us the Sabbath singingOf the sweet-voiced choir, Ours the old, majestic temple, Where God's brightness shinesDown the dome so grand and ample, Propped by lofty pines!

Through each branch-enwoven skylight, Speaks He in the breeze, As of old beneath the twilightOf lost Eden's trees!For His ear, the inward feelingNeeds no outward tongue;He can see the spirit kneelingWhile the axe is swung. 

Heeding truth alone, and turningFrom the false and dim, Lamp of toil or altar burningAre alike to Him. Strike, then, comrades! Trade is waitingOn our rugged toil;Far ships waiting for the freightingOf our woodland spoil. 

Ships, whose traffic links these highlands, Bleak and cold, of ours, With the citron-planted islandsOf a clime of flowers;To our frosts the tribute bringingOf eternal heats;In our lap of winter flingingTropic fruits and sweets. 

Cheerly, on the axe of labor, Let the sunbeams dance, Better than the flash of sabreOr the gleam of lance!Strike! With every blow is givenFreer sun and sky, And the long-hid earth to heavenLooks, with wondering eye!

Loud behind us grow the murmursOf the age to come;Clang of smiths, and tread of farmers, Bearing harvest home!Here her virgin lap with treasuresShall the green earth fill;Waving wheat and golden maize-earsCrown each beechen hill. 

Keep who will the city's alleysTake the smooth-shorn plain';Give to us the cedarn valleys, Rocks and hills of Maine!In our North-land, wild and woody, Let us still have partRugged nurse and mother sturdy, Hold us to thy heart!

Oh, our free hearts beat the warmerFor thy breath of snow;And our tread is all the firmerFor thy rocks below. Freedom, hand in hand with labor, Walketh strong and brave;On the forehead of his neighborNo man writeth Slave!

Lo, the day breaks! old Katahdin'sPine-trees show its fires, While from these dim forest gardensRise their blackened spires. Up, my comrades! up and doing!Manhood's rugged playStill renewing, bravely hewingThrough the world our way!1845. 

THE SHIP-BUILDERS

THE sky is ruddy in the east, The earth is gray below, And, spectral in the river-mist, The ship's white timbers show. Then let the sounds of measured strokeAnd grating saw begin;The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, The mallet to the pin!

Hark! roars the bellows, blast on blast, The sooty smithy jars, And fire-sparks, rising far and fast, Are fading with the stars. All day for us the smith shall standBeside that flashing forge;All day for us his heavy handThe groaning anvil scourge. 

From far-off hills, the panting teamFor us is toiling near;For us the raftsmen down the streamTheir island barges steer. Rings out for us the axe-man's strokeIn forests old and still;For us the century-circled oakFalls crashing down his hill. 

Up! up! in nobler toil than oursNo craftsmen bear a partWe make of Nature's giant powersThe slaves of human Art. Lay rib to rib and beam to beam, And drive the treenails free;Nor faithless joint nor yawning seamShall tempt the searching sea. 

Where'er the keel of our good shipThe sea's rough field shall plough;Where'er her tossing spars shall dripWith salt-spray caught below;That ship must heed her master's beck, Her helm obey his hand, And seamen tread her reeling deckAs if they trod the land. 

Her oaken ribs the vulture-beakOf Northern ice may peel;The sunken rock and coral peakMay grate along her keel;And know we well the painted shellWe give to wind and wave, Must float, the sailor's citadel, Or sink, the sailor's grave. 

Ho! strike away the bars and blocks, And set the good ship free!Why lingers on these dusty rocksThe young bride of the sea?Look! how she moves adown the grooves, In graceful beauty now!How lowly on the breast she lovesSinks down her virgin prow. 

God bless her! wheresoe'er the breezeHer snowy wing shall fan, Aside the frozen Hebrides, Or sultry Hindostan!Where'er, in mart or on the main, With peaceful flag unfurled, She helps to wind the silken chainOf commerce round the world!

Speed on the ship! But let her bearNo merchandise of sin, No groaning cargo of despairHer roomy hold within;No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, Nor poison-draught for ours;But honest fruits of toiling handsAnd Nature's sun and showers. 

Be hers the Prairie's golden grain, The Desert's golden sand, The clustered fruits of sunny Spain, The spice of Morning-land!Her pathway on the open mainMay blessings follow free, And glad hearts welcome back againHer white sails from the sea1846. 

THE DROVERS. 

THROUGH heat and cold, and shower and sun, Still onward cheerly drivingThere's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving. But see! the day is closing cool, The woods are dim before us;The white fog of the wayside poolIs creeping slowly o'er us. 

The night is falling, comrades mine, Our footsore beasts are weary, And through yon elms the tavern signLooks out upon us cheery. The landlord beckons from his door, His beechen fire is glowing;These ample barns, with feed in store, Are filled to overflowing. 

From many a valley frowned acrossBy brows of rugged mountains;From hillsides where, through spongy moss, Gush out the river fountains;From quiet farm-fields, green and low, And bright with blooming clover;From vales of corn the wandering crowNo richer hovers over;

Day after day our way has beenO'er many a hill and hollow;By lake and stream, by wood and glen, Our stately drove we follow. Through dust-clouds rising thick and dun, As smoke of battle o'er us, Their white horns glisten in the sun, Like plumes and crests before us. 

We see them slowly climb the hill, As slow behind it sinking;Or, thronging close, from roadside rill, Or sunny lakelet, drinking. Now crowding in the narrow road, In thick and struggling masses, They glare upon the teamster's load, Or rattling coach that passes. 

Anon, with toss of horn and tail, And paw of hoof, and bellow, They leap some farmer's broken pale, O'er meadow-close or fallow. Forth comes the startled goodman; forthWife, children, house-dog, sally, Till once more on their dusty pathThe baffled truants rally. 

We drive no starvelings, scraggy grown, Loose-legged, and ribbed and bony, Like those who grind their noses downOn pastures bare and stony, --Lank oxen, rough as Indian dogs, And cows too lean for shadows, Disputing feebly with the frogsThe crop of saw-grass meadows!

In our good drove, so sleek and fair, No bones of leanness rattle;No tottering hide-bound ghosts are there, Or Pharaoh's evil cattle. Each stately beeve bespeaks the handThat fed him unrepining;The fatness of a goodly landIn each dun hide is shining. 

We've sought them where, in warmest nooks, The freshest feed is growing, By sweetest springs and clearest brooksThrough honeysuckle flowing;Wherever hillsides, sloping south, Are bright with early grasses, Or, tracking green the lowland's drouth, The mountain streamlet passes. 

But now the day is closing cool, The woods are dim before us, The white fog of the wayside poolIs creeping slowly o'er us. The cricket to the frog's bassoonHis shrillest time is keeping;The sickle of yon setting moonThe meadow-mist is reaping. 

The night is falling, comrades mine, Our footsore beasts are weary, And through yon elms the tavern signLooks out upon us cheery. To-morrow, eastward with our chargeWe'll go to meet the dawning, Ere yet the pines of KearsargeHave seen the sun of morning. 

When snow-flakes o'er the frozen earth, Instead of birds, are flitting;When children throng the glowing hearth, And quiet wives are knitting;While in the fire-light strong and clearYoung eyes of pleasure glisten, To tales of all we see and hearThe ears of home shall listen. 

By many a Northern lake and bill, From many a mountain pasture, Shall Fancy play the Drover still, And speed the long night faster. Then let us on, through shower and sun, And heat and cold, be driving;There 's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving. 1847. 

THE HUSKERS. 

IT was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rainHad left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gayWith the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow-flowers of May. 

Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red, At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped;Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued, On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood. 

And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night, He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light;Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill;And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still. 

And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky, Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why;And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks, Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks. 

From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks;But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks. No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell, And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell. 

The summer grains were harvested; the stubble-fields lay dry, Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale green waves of rye;But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood, Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn crop stood. 

Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks that, dry and sere, Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear;Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold, And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold. 

There wrought the busy harvesters; and many a creaking wainBore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain;Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last, And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in brightness passed. 

And to! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond, Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire beyond, Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone, And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!

As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away, And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay;From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name, Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry huskers came. 

Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow, Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below;The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before, And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er. 

Half hidden, in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart, Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart;While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade, At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played. 

Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair, Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair, The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue, To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a husking ballad sung. 

THE CORN-SONG. Heap high the farmer's wintry hoardHeap high the golden cornNo richer gift has Autumn pouredFrom out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, gleanThe apple from the pine, The orange from its glossy green, The cluster from the vine;

We better love the hardy giftOur rugged vales bestow, To cheer us when the storm shall driftOur harvest-fields with snow. 

Through vales of grass and mends of flowersOur ploughs their furrows made, While on the hills the sun and showersOf changeful April played. 

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plainBeneath the sun of May, And frightened from our sprouting grainThe robber crows away. 

All through the long, bright days of JuneIts leaves grew green and fair, And waved in hot midsummer's noonIts soft and yellow hair. 

And now, with autumn's moonlit eves, Its harvest-time has come, We pluck away the frosted leaves, And bear the treasure home. 

There, when the snows about us drift, And winter winds are cold, Fair hands the broken grain shall sift, And knead its meal of gold. 

Let vapid idlers loll in silkAround their costly board;Give us the bowl of samp and milk, By homespun beauty poured!

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearthSends up its smoky curls, Who will not thank the kindly earth, And bless our farmer girls!

Then shame on all the proud and vain, Whose folly laughs to scornThe blessing of our hardy grain, Our wealth of golden corn. 

Let earth withhold her goodly root, Let mildew blight the rye, Give to the worm the orchard's fruit, The wheat-field to the fly. 

But let the good old crop adornThe hills our fathers trod;Still let us, for his golden corn, Send up our thanks to God!1847. 

THE REFORMER. 

ALL grim and soiled and brown with tan, I saw a Strong One, in his wrath, Smiting the godless shrines of manAlong his path. 

The Church, beneath her trembling dome, Essayed in vain her ghostly charmWealth shook within his gilded homeWith strange alarm. 

Fraud from his secret chambers fledBefore the sunlight bursting inSloth drew her pillow o'er her headTo drown the din. 

"Spare, " Art implored, "yon holy pile;That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;"Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, Cried out, "Forbear!"

Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, Groped for his old accustomed stone, Leaned on his staff, and wept to findHis seat o'erthrown. 

Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, O'erhung with paly locks of gold, --"Why smite, " he asked in sad surprise, "The fair, the old?"

Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke, Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam;Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, As from a dream. 

I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled, The Waster seemed the Builder too;Upspringing from the ruined OldI saw the New. 

'T was but the ruin of the bad, --The wasting of the wrong and ill;Whate'er of good the old time hadWas living still. 

Calm grew the brows of him I feared;The frown which awed me passed away, And left behind a smile which cheeredLike breaking day. 

The grain grew green on battle-plains, O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow;The slave stood forging from his chainsThe spade and plough. 

Where frowned the fort, pavilions gayAnd cottage windows, flower-entwined, Looked out upon the peaceful bayAnd hills behind. 

Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red, The lights on brimming crystal fell, Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet headAnd mossy well. 

Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope, Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed, And with the idle gallows-ropeThe young child played. 

Where the doomed victim in his cellHad counted o'er the weary hours, Glad school-girls, answering to the bell, Came crowned with flowers. 

Grown wiser for the lesson given, I fear no longer, for I knowThat, where the share is deepest driven, The best fruits grow. 

The outworn rite, the old abuse, The pious fraud transparent grown, The good held captive in the useOf wrong alone, --

These wait their doom, from that great lawWhich makes the past time serve to-day;And fresher life the world shall drawFrom their decay. 

Oh, backward-looking son of time!The new is old, the old is new, The cycle of a change sublimeStill sweeping through. 

So wisely taught the Indian seer;Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same. 

Idly as thou, in that old dayThou mournest, did thy sire repine;So, in his time, thy child grown grayShall sigh for thine. 

But life shall on and upward go;Th' eternal step of Progress beatsTo that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats. 

Take heart! the Waster builds again, A charmed life old Goodness bath;The tares may perish, but the grainIs not for death. 

God works in all things; all obeyHis first propulsion from the nightWake thou and watch! the world is grayWith morning light!1848. 

THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS. 

STILL in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stainOf blood defy the cleansing autumn rain;Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through, And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew, When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread, At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fedThe yawning trenches with her noble dead;Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately hallsThe shell goes crashing and the red shot falls, And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's side, The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride;Still in that vale where Himalaya's snowMelts round the cornfields and the vines below, The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball, Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered wall;On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain, And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again. 

"What folly, then, " the faithless critic cries, With sneering lip, and wise world-knowing eyes, "While fort to fort, and post to post, repeatThe ceaseless challenge of the war-drum's beat, And round the green earth, to the church-bell's chime, The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time, To dream of peace amidst a world in arms, Of swords to ploughshares changed by Scriptural charms, Of nations, drunken with the wine of blood, Staggering to take the Pledge of Brotherhood, Like tipplers answering Father Matthew's call;The sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap Gaul, The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with life, The Yankee swaggering with his bowie-knife, The Russ, from banquets with the vulture shared, The blood still dripping from his amber beard, Quitting their mad Berserker dance to hearThe dull, meek droning of a drab-coat seer;Leaving the sport of Presidents and Kings, Where men for dice each titled gambler flings, To meet alternate on the Seine and Thames, For tea and gossip, like old country damesNo! let the cravens plead the weakling's cant, Let Cobden cipher, and let Vincent rant, Let Sturge preach peace to democratic throngs, And Burritt, stammering through his hundred tongues, Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons o'er, Timed to the pauses of the battery's roar;Check Ban or Kaiser with the barricadeOf "Olive-leaves" and Resolutions made, Spike guns with pointed Scripture-texts, and hopeTo capsize navies with a windy trope;Still shall the glory and the pomp of WarAlong their train the shouting millions draw;Still dusty Labor to the passing BraveHis cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave;Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song, Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong;Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned divine, O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine, To plumed and sworded auditors, shall proveTheir trade accordant with the Law of Love;And Church for State, and State for Church, shall fight, And both agree, that "Might alone is Right!"Despite of sneers like these, O faithful few, Who dare to hold God's word and witness true, Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time, And o'er the present wilderness of crimeSees the calm future, with its robes of green, Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft streams between, --Still keep the path which duty bids ye tread, Though worldly wisdom shake the cautious head;No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere, Without the greeting of the skeptic's sneer;Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall, Common as dew and sunshine, over all. "

Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the strife shall cease, Like Morven's harpers, sing your song of peace;As in old fable rang the Thracian's lyre, Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal fire, Till the fierce din to pleasing murmurs fell, And love subdued the maddened heart of hell. Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue, Which the glad angels of the Advent sung, Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour's birth, Glory to God, and peace unto the earthThrough the mad discord send that calming wordWhich wind and wave on wild Genesareth heard, Lift in Christ's name his Cross against the Sword!Not vain the vision which the prophets saw, Skirting with green the fiery waste of war, Through the hot sand-gleam, looming soft and calmOn the sky's rim, the fountain-shading palm. Still lives for Earth, which fiends so long have trod, The great hope resting on the truth of God, --Evil shall cease and Violence pass away, And the tired world breathe free through a longSabbath day. 11th mo. , 1848. 

THE PRISONER FOR DEBT. 

Before the law authorizing imprisonment for debt had been abolished inMassachusetts, a revolutionary pensioner was confined in Charlestownjail for a debt of fourteen dollars, and on the fourth of July was seenwaving a handkerchief from the bars of his cell in honor of the day. 

Look on him! through his dungeon grate, Feebly and cold, the morning lightComes stealing round him, dim and late, As if it loathed the sight. Reclining on his strawy bed, His hand upholds his drooping head;His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard, Unshorn his gray, neglected beard;And o'er his bony fingers flowHis long, dishevelled locks of snow. No grateful fire before him glows, And yet the winter's breath is chill;And o'er his half-clad person goesThe frequent ague thrill!Silent, save ever and anon, A sound, half murmur and half groan, Forces apart the painful gripOf the old sufferer's bearded lip;Oh, sad and crushing is the fateOf old age chained and desolate!

Just God! why lies that old man there?A murderer shares his prison bed, Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair, Gleam on him, fierce and red;And the rude oath and heartless jeerFall ever on his loathing ear, And, or in wakefulness or sleep, Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creepWhene'er that ruffian's tossing limb, Crimson with murder, touches him!

What has the gray-haired prisoner done?Has murder stained his hands with gore?Not so; his crime's a fouler one;God made the old man poor!For this he shares a felon's cell, The fittest earthly type of hellFor this, the boon for which he pouredHis young blood on the invader's sword, And counted light the fearful cost;His blood-gained liberty is lost!

And so, for such a place of rest, Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rainOn Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga's plain?Look forth, thou man of many scars, Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars;It must be joy, in sooth, to seeYon monument upreared to thee;Piled granite and a prison cell, The land repays thy service well!

Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, And fling the starry banner out;Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping onesGive back their cradle-shout;Let boastful eloquence declaimOf honor, liberty, and fame;Still let the poet's strain be heard, With glory for each second word, And everything with breath agreeTo praise "our glorious liberty!"

But when the patron cannon jarsThat prison's cold and gloomy wall, And through its grates the stripes and starsRise on the wind, and fall, Think ye that prisoner's aged earRejoices in the general cheer?Think ye his dim and failing eyeIs kindled at your pageantry?Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb, What is your carnival to him?

Down with the law that binds him thus!Unworthy freemen, let it findNo refuge from the withering curseOf God and human-kindOpen the prison's living tomb, And usher from its brooding gloomThe victims of your savage codeTo the free sun and air of God;No longer dare as crime to brandThe chastening of the Almighty's hand. 1849. 

THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS. 

The reader of the biography of William Allen, the philanthropicassociate of Clarkson and Romilly, cannot fail to admire his simple andbeautiful record of a tour through Europe, in the years 1818 and 1819, in the company of his American friend, Stephen Grellett. 

No aimless wanderers, by the fiend UnrestGoaded from shore to shore;No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest, The leaves of empire o'er. Simple of faith, and bearing in their heartsThe love of man and God, Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts, And Scythia's steppes, they trod. 

Where the long shadows of the fir and pineIn the night sun are cast, And the deep heart of many a Norland mineQuakes at each riving blast;Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands, A baptized Scythian queen, With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands, The North and East between!

Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, strayThe classic forms of yore, And beauty smiles, new risen from the spray, And Dian weeps once more;Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds;And Stamboul from the seaLifts her tall minarets over burial-groundsBlack with the cypress-tree. 

From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome, Following the track of Paul, And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's homeTheir vast, eternal wall;They paused not by the ruins of old time, They scanned no pictures rare, Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountainsclimbThe cold abyss of air!

But unto prisons, where men lay in chains, To haunts where Hunger pined, To kings and courts forgetful of the painsAnd wants of human-kind, Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good, Along their way, like flowers, Or pleading, as Christ's freemen only could, With princes and with powers;

Their single aim the purpose to fulfilOf Truth, from day to day, Simply obedient to its guiding will, They held their pilgrim way. Yet dream not, hence, the beautiful and oldWere wasted on their sight, Who in the school of Christ had learned to holdAll outward things aright. 

Not less to them the breath of vineyards blownFrom off the Cyprian shore, Not less for them the Alps in sunset shone, That man they valued more. A life of beauty lends to all it seesThe beauty of its thought;And fairest forms and sweetest harmoniesMake glad its way, unsought. 

In sweet accordancy of praise and love, The singing waters run;And sunset mountains wear in light aboveThe smile of duty done;Sure stands the promise, --ever to the meekA heritage is given;Nor lose they Earth who, single-hearted, seekThe righteousness of Heaven!1849. 

THE MEN OF OLD. 

"WELL speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art, If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart, Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past, By the great Future's dazzling hope made blindTo all the beauty, power, and truth behind. Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put byThe cypress branches and the amaranth blooms, Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon their tombsThe effigies of old confessors lie, God's witnesses; the voices of His will, Heard in the slow march of the centuries stillSuch were the men at whose rebuking frown, Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went down;Such from the terrors of the guilty drewThe vassal's freedom and the poor man's due. "

St. Anselm (may he rest forevermoreIn Heaven's sweet peace!) forbade, of old, the saleOf men as slaves, and from the sacred paleHurled the Northumbrian buyers of the poor. To ransom souls from bonds and evil fateSt. Ambrose melted down the sacred plate, --Image of saint, the chalice, and the pix, Crosses of gold, and silver candlesticks. "Man is worth more than temples!" he repliedTo such as came his holy work to chide. And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare, And coining from the Abbey's golden hoardThe captive's freedom, answered to the prayerOr threat of those whose fierce zeal for the LordStifled their love of man, --"An earthen dishThe last sad supper of the Master boreMost miserable sinners! do ye wishMore than your Lord, and grudge His dying poorWhat your own pride and not His need requires?Souls, than these shining gauds, He values moreMercy, not sacrifice, His heart desires!"O faithful worthies! resting far behindIn your dark ages, since ye fell asleep, Much has been done for truth and human-kind;Shadows are scattered wherein ye groped blind;Man claims his birthright, freer pulses leapThrough peoples driven in your day like sheep;Yet, like your own, our age's sphere of light, Though widening still, is walled around by night;With slow, reluctant eye, the Church has read, Skeptic at heart, the lessons of its Head;Counting, too oft, its living members lessThan the wall's garnish and the pulpit's dress;World-moving zeal, with power to bless and feedLife's fainting pilgrims, to their utter need, Instead of bread, holds out the stone of creed;Sect builds and worships where its wealth andprideAnd vanity stand shrined and deified, Careless that in the shadow of its wallsGod's living temple into ruin falls. We need, methinks, the prophet-hero still, Saints true of life, and martyrs strong of will, To tread the land, even now, as Xavier trodThe streets of Goa, barefoot, with his bell, Proclaiming freedom in the name of God, And startling tyrants with the fear of hellSoft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless well;But to rebuke the age's popular crime, We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that oldtime!1849. 

TO PIUS IX. 

The writer of these lines is no enemy of Catholics. He has, on more thanone occasion, exposed himself to the censures of his Protestantbrethren, by his strenuous endeavors to procure indemnification for theowners of the convent destroyed near Boston. He defended the cause ofthe Irish patriots long before it had become popular in this country;and he was one of the first to urge the most liberal aid to thesuffering and starving population of the Catholic island. The severityof his language finds its ample apology in the reluctant confession ofone of the most eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted FatherVentura. 

THE cannon's brazen lips are cold;No red shell blazes down the air;And street and tower, and temple old, Are silent as despair. 

The Lombard stands no more at bay, Rome's fresh young life has bled in vain;The ravens scattered by the dayCome back with night again. 

Now, while the fratricides of FranceAre treading on the neck of Rome, Hider at Gaeta, seize thy chance!Coward and cruel, come!

Creep now from Naples' bloody skirt;Thy mummer's part was acted well, While Rome, with steel and fire begirt, Before thy crusade fell!

Her death-groans answered to thy prayer;Thy chant, the drum and bugle-call;Thy lights, the burning villa's glare;Thy beads, the shell and ball!

Let Austria clear thy way, with handsFoul from Ancona's cruel sack, And Naples, with his dastard bandsOf murderers, lead thee back!

Rome's lips are dumb; the orphan's wail, The mother's shriek, thou mayst not hearAbove the faithless Frenchman's hail, The unsexed shaveling's cheer!

Go, bind on Rome her cast-off weight, The double curse of crook and crown, Though woman's scorn and manhood's hateFrom wall and roof flash down!

Nor heed those blood-stains on the wall, Not Tiber's flood can wash away, Where, in thy stately Quirinal, Thy mangled victims lay!

Let the world murmur; let its cryOf horror and disgust be heard;Truth stands alone; thy coward lieIs backed by lance and sword!

The cannon of St. Angelo, And chanting priest and clanging bell, And beat of drum and bugle blow, Shall greet thy coming well!

Let lips of iron and tongues of slavesFit welcome give thee; for her part, Rome, frowning o'er her new-made graves, Shall curse thee from her heart!

No wreaths of sad Campagna's flowersShall childhood in thy pathway fling;No garlands from their ravaged bowersShall Terni's maidens bring;

But, hateful as that tyrant old, The mocking witness of his crime, In thee shall loathing eyes beholdThe Nero of our time!

Stand where Rome's blood was freest shed, Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and callIts curses on the patriot dead, Its blessings on the Gaul!

Or sit upon thy throne of lies, A poor, mean idol, blood-besmeared, Whom even its worshippers despise, Unhonored, unrevered!

Yet, Scandal of the World! from theeOne needful truth mankind shall learnThat kings and priests to LibertyAnd God are false in turn. 

Earth wearies of them; and the longMeek sufferance of the Heavens doth fail;Woe for weak tyrants, when the strongWake, struggle, and prevail!

Not vainly Roman hearts have bledTo feed the Crosier and the Crown, If, roused thereby, the world shall treadThe twin-born vampires down1849. 

CALEF IN BOSTON. 

1692. 

IN the solemn days of old, Two men met in Boston town, One a tradesman frank and bold, One a preacher of renown. 

Cried the last, in bitter tone:"Poisoner of the wells of truthSatan's hireling, thou hast sownWith his tares the heart of youth!"

Spake the simple tradesman then, "God be judge 'twixt thee and me;All thou knowed of truth hath beenOnce a lie to men like thee. 

"Falsehoods which we spurn to-dayWere the truths of long ago;Let the dead boughs fall away, Fresher shall the living grow. 

"God is good and God is light, In this faith I rest secure;Evil can but serve the right, Over all shall love endure. 

"Of your spectral puppet playI have traced the cunning wires;Come what will, I needs must say, God is true, and ye are liars. "

When the thought of man is free, Error fears its lightest tones;So the priest cried, "Sadducee!"And the people took up stones. 

In the ancient burying-ground, Side by side the twain now lie;One with humble grassy mound, One with marbles pale and high. 

But the Lord hath blest the seedWhich that tradesman scattered then, And the preacher's spectral creedChills no more the blood of men. 

Let us trust, to one is knownPerfect love which casts out fear, While the other's joys atoneFor the wrong he suffered here. 1849. 

OUR STATE. 

THE South-land boasts its teeming cane, The prairied West its heavy grain, And sunset's radiant gates unfoldOn rising marts and sands of gold. 

Rough, bleak, and hard, our little StateIs scant of soil, of limits strait;Her yellow sands are sands alone, Her only mines are ice and stone!

From Autumn frost to April rain, Too long her winter woods complain;From budding flower to falling leaf, Her summer time is all too brief. 

Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands, And wintry hills, the school-house stands, And what her rugged soil denies, The harvest of the mind supplies. 

The riches of the CommonwealthAre free, strong minds, and hearts of health;And more to her than gold or grain, The cunning hand and cultured brain. 

For well she keeps her ancient stock, The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock;And still maintains, with milder laws, And clearer light, the Good Old Cause. 

Nor heeds the skeptic's puny hands, While near her school the church-spire stands;Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule, While near her church-spire stands the school. 1549. 

THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES. 

I HAVE been thinking of the victims boundIn Naples, dying for the lack of airAnd sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain, Where hope is not, and innocence in vainAppeals against the torture and the chain!Unfortunates! whose crime it was to shareOur common love of freedom, and to dare, In its behalf, Rome's harlot triple-crowned, And her base pander, the most hateful thingWho upon Christian or on Pagan groundMakes vile the old heroic name of king. O God most merciful! Father just and kindWhom man hath bound let thy right hand unbind. Or, if thy purposes of good behindTheir ills lie hidden, let the sufferers findStrong consolations; leave them not to doubtThy providential care, nor yet withoutThe hope which all thy attributes inspire, That not in vain the martyr's robe of fireIs worn, nor the sad prisoner's fretting chain;Since all who suffer for thy truth send forth, Electrical, with every throb of pain, Unquenchable sparks, thy own baptismal rainOf fire and spirit over all the earth, Making the dead in slavery live again. Let this great hope be with them, as they lieShut from the light, the greenness, and the sky;From the cool waters and the pleasant breeze, The smell of flowers, and shade of summer trees;Bound with the felon lepers, whom diseaseAnd sins abhorred make loathsome; let them sharePellico's faith, Foresti's strength to bearYears of unutterable torment, stern and still, As the chained Titan victor through his will!Comfort them with thy future; let them seeThe day-dawn of Italian liberty;For that, with all good things, is hid with Thee, And, perfect in thy thought, awaits its time to be. 

I, who have spoken for freedom at the costOf some weak friendships, or some paltry prizeOf name or place, and more than I have lostHave gained in wider reach of sympathies, And free communion with the good and wise;May God forbid that I should ever boastSuch easy self-denial, or repineThat the strong pulse of health no more is mine;That, overworn at noonday, I must yieldTo other hands the gleaning of the field;A tired on-looker through the day's decline. For blest beyond deserving still, and knowingThat kindly Providence its care is showingIn the withdrawal as in the bestowing, Scarcely I dare for more or less to pray. Beautiful yet for me this autumn dayMelts on its sunset hills; and, far away, For me the Ocean lifts its solemn psalm, To me the pine-woods whisper; and for meYon river, winding through its vales of calm, By greenest banks, with asters purple-starred, And gentian bloom and golden-rod made gay, Flows down in silent gladness to the sea, Like a pure spirit to its great reward!

Nor lack I friends, long-tried and near and dear, Whose love is round me like this atmosphere, Warm, soft, and golden. For such gifts to meWhat shall I render, O my God, to thee?Let me not dwell upon my lighter shareOf pain and ill that human life must bear;Save me from selfish pining; let my heart, Drawn from itself in sympathy, forgetThe bitter longings of a vain regret, The anguish of its own peculiar smart. Remembering others, as I have to-day, In their great sorrows, let me live alwayNot for myself alone, but have a part, Such as a frail and erring spirit may, In love which is of Thee, and which indeed Thou art!1851. 

THE PEACE OF EUROPE. 

"GREAT peace in Europe! Order reignsFrom Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!"So say her kings and priests; so sayThe lying prophets of our day. 

Go lay to earth a listening ear;The tramp of measured marches hear;The rolling of the cannon's wheel, The shotted musket's murderous peal, The night alarm, the sentry's call, The quick-eared spy in hut and hall!From Polar sea and tropic fenThe dying-groans of exiled men!The bolted cell, the galley's chains, The scaffold smoking with its stains!Order, the hush of brooding slavesPeace, in the dungeon-vaults and graves!

O Fisher! of the world-wide net, With meshes in all waters set, Whose fabled keys of heaven and hellBolt hard the patriot's prison-cell, And open wide the banquet-hall, Where kings and priests hold carnival!Weak vassal tricked in royal guise, Boy Kaiser with thy lip of lies;Base gambler for Napoleon's crown, Barnacle on his dead renown!Thou, Bourbon Neapolitan, Crowned scandal, loathed of God and manAnd thou, fell Spider of the North!Stretching thy giant feelers forth, Within whose web the freedom diesOf nations eaten up like flies!Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and Czar IIf this be Peace, pray what is War?

White Angel of the Lord! unmeetThat soil accursed for thy pure feet. Never in Slavery's desert flowsThe fountain of thy charmed repose;No tyrant's hand thy chaplet weavesOf lilies and of olive-leaves;Not with the wicked shalt thou dwell, Thus saith the Eternal Oracle;Thy home is with the pure and free!Stern herald of thy better day, Before thee, to prepare thy way, The Baptist Shade of Liberty, Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must pressWith bleeding feet the wilderness!Oh that its voice might pierces the earOf princes, trembling while they hearA cry as of the Hebrew seerRepent! God's kingdom draweth near!1852. 

ASTRAEA. 

"Jove means to settleAstraea in her seat again, And let down from his golden chainAn age of better metal. " BEN JONSON, 1615. 

O POET rare and old!Thy words are prophecies;Forward the age of gold, The new Saturnian lies. 

The universal prayerAnd hope are not in vain;Rise, brothers! and prepareThe way for Saturn's reign. 

Perish shall all which takesFrom labor's board and can;Perish shall all which makesA spaniel of the man!

Free from its bonds the mind, The body from the rod;Broken all chains that bindThe image of our God. 

Just men no longer pineBehind their prison-bars;Through the rent dungeon shineThe free sun and the stars. 

Earth own, at last, untrodBy sect, or caste, or clan, The fatherhood of God, The brotherhood of man!

Fraud fail, craft perish, forthThe money-changers driven, And God's will done on earth, As now in heaven;1852. 

THE DISENTHRALLED. 

HE had bowed down to drunkenness, An abject worshipperThe pride of manhood's pulse had grownToo faint and cold to stir;And he had given his spirit upTo the unblessed thrall, And bowing to the poison cup, He gloried in his fall!

There came a change--the cloud rolled off, And light fell on his brain--And like the passing of a dreamThat cometh not again, The shadow of the spirit fled. He saw the gulf before, He shuddered at the waste behind, And was a man once more. 

He shook the serpent folds away, That gathered round his heart, As shakes the swaying forest-oakIts poison vine apart;He stood erect; returning prideGrew terrible within, And conscience sat in judgment, onHis most familiar sin. 

The light of Intellect againAlong his pathway shone;And Reason like a monarch satUpon his olden throne. The honored and the wise once moreWithin his presence came;And lingered oft on lovely lipsHis once forbidden name. 

There may be glory in the might, That treadeth nations down;Wreaths for the crimson conqueror, Pride for the kingly crown;But nobler is that triumph hour, The disenthralled shall find, When evil passion boweth down, Unto the Godlike mind. 

THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY. 

THE proudest now is but my peer, The highest not more high;To-day, of all the weary year, A king of men am I. To-day, alike are great and small, The nameless and the known;My palace is the people's hall, The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the listBeside the served shall stand;Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, The gloved and dainty hand!The rich is level with the poor, The weak is strong to-day;And sleekest broadcloth counts no moreThan homespun frock of gray. 

To-day let pomp and vain pretenceMy stubborn right abide;I set a plain man's common senseAgainst the pedant's pride. To-day shall simple manhood tryThe strength of gold and land;The wide world has not wealth to buyThe power in my right hand!

While there's a grief to seek redress, Or balance to adjust, Where weighs our living manhood lessThan Mammon's vilest dust, --While there's a right to need my vote, A wrong to sweep away, Up! clouted knee and ragged coatA man's a man to-day1848. 

THE DREAM OF PIO NONO. 

IT chanced that while the pious troops of FranceFought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands(The Hun and Aaron meet for such a Moses), Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious RomeTo bless the ministry of Oudinot, And sanctify his iron homiliesAnd sharp persuasions of the bayonet, That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed. 

He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sunOf the bight Orient; and beheld the lame, The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master's feet, And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all, Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praiseFrom heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song, He heard the blessed angels sing of peace, Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord. 

Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern faceHardened and darkened by fierce summer sunsAnd hot winds of the desert, closer drewHis fisher's haick, and girded up his loins, And spake, as one who had authority"Come thou with me. "

Lakeside and eastern skyAnd the sweet song of angels passed away, And, with a dream's alacrity of change, The priest, and the swart fisher by his side, Beheld the Eternal City lift its domesAnd solemn fanes and monumental pompAbove the waste Campagna. On the hillsThe blaze of burning villas rose and fell, And momently the mortar's iron throatRoared from the trenches; and, within the walls, Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain, Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell, And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound, Half wail and half defiance. As they passedThe gate of San Pancrazio, human bloodFlowed ankle-high about them, and dead menChoked the long street with gashed and gory piles, --A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh, From which at times, quivered a living hand, And white lips moved and moaned. A father toreHis gray hairs, by the body of his son, In frenzy; and his fair young daughter weptOn his old bosom. Suddenly a flashClove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maidSank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell. 

Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seenThe blessed Master and His works of love;Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels singAbove this open hell? Thou God's high-priest!Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace!Thou the successor of His chosen ones!I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, In the dear Master's name, and for the loveOf His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, Alien and separate from His holy faith, Wide as the difference between death and life, The hate of man and the great love of God!Hence, and repent!"

Thereat the pontiff woke, Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream. "What means he?" cried the Bourbon, "Nothing moreThan that your majesty hath all too wellCatered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth, The Holy Father's supper troubleth him, "Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile. 1853. 

THE VOICES. WHY urge the long, unequal fight, Since Truth has fallen in the street, Or lift anew the trampled light, Quenched by the heedless million's feet?

"Give o'er the thankless task; forsakeThe fools who know not ill from goodEat, drink, enjoy thy own, and takeThine ease among the multitude. 

"Live out thyself; with others shareThy proper life no more; assumeThe unconcern of sun and air, For life or death, or blight or bloom. 

"The mountain pine looks calmly onThe fires that scourge the plains below, Nor heeds the eagle in the sunThe small birds piping in the snow!

"The world is God's, not thine; let HimWork out a change, if change must beThe hand that planted best can trimAnd nurse the old unfruitful tree. "

So spake the Tempter, when the lightOf sun and stars had left the sky;I listened, through the cloud and night, And beard, methought, a voice reply:

"Thy task may well seem over-hard, Who scatterest in a thankless soilThy life as seed, with no rewardSave that which Duty gives to Toil. 

"Not wholly is thy heart resignedTo Heaven's benign and just decree, Which, linking thee with all thy kind, Transmits their joys and griefs to thee. 

"Break off that sacred chain, and turnBack on thyself thy love and care;Be thou thine own mean idol, burnFaith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there. 

"Released from that fraternal lawWhich shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this. 

"The meal unshared is food unblestThou hoard'st in vain what love should spend;Self-ease is pain; thy only restIs labor for a worthy end;

"A toil that gains with what it yields, And scatters to its own increase, And hears, while sowing outward fields, The harvest-song of inward peace. 

"Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run, Free shines for all the healthful ray;The still pool stagnates in the sun, The lurid earth-fire haunts decay. 

"What is it that the crowd requiteThy love with hate, thy truth with lies?And but to faith, and not to sight, The walls of Freedom's temple rise?

"Yet do thy work; it shall succeedIn thine or in another's day;And, if denied the victor's meed, Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay. 

"Faith shares the future's promise; Love'sSelf-offering is a triumph won;And each good thought or action movesThe dark world nearer to the sun. 

"Then faint not, falter not, nor pleadThy weakness; truth itself is strong;The lion's strength, the eagle's speed, Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong. 

"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, To place or gain finds out its way, Hath power to seek the highest good, And duty's holiest call obey!

"Strivest thou in darkness?--Foes withoutIn league with traitor thoughts within;Thy night-watch kept with trembling DoubtAnd pale Remorse the ghost of Sin?

"Hast thou not, on some week of storm, Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair, And cloud and shadow, sunlit, formThe curtains of its tent of prayer?

"So, haply, when thy task shall end, The wrong shall lose itself in right, And all thy week-day darkness blendWith the long Sabbath of the light!"1854. 

THE NEW EXODUS. 

Written upon hearing that slavery had been formally abolished in Egypt. Unhappily, the professions and pledges of the vacillating government ofEgypt proved unreliable. 

BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand, And through the parted waves, From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, God led the Hebrew slaves!

Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, As Egypt's statues cold, In the adytum of the sacred bookNow stands that marvel old. 

"Lo, God is great!" the simple Moslem says. We seek the ancient date, Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phraseA dead one: "God was great!"

And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, We dream of wonders past, Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, Each drowsier than the last. 

O fools and blind! Above the PyramidsStretches once more that hand, And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand. 

And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes;And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaksA sweet and human smile. 

Not, as before, with hail and fire, and callOf death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fallThe fetters of the slaves. 

No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod;Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of God1856. 

THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND. 

"Joseph Sturge, with a companion, Thomas Harvey, has been visiting theshores of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief and loss to poorand peaceable sufferers, occasioned by the gun-boats of the alliedsquadrons in the late war, with a view to obtaining relief for them. "--Friends' Review. 

ACROSS the frozen marshesThe winds of autumn blow, And the fen-lands of the WetterAre white with early snow. 

But where the low, gray headlandsLook o'er the Baltic brine, A bark is sailing in the trackOf England's battle-line. 

No wares hath she to barterFor Bothnia's fish and grain;She saileth not for pleasure, She saileth not for gain. 

But still by isle or mainlandShe drops her anchor down, Where'er the British cannonRained fire on tower and town. 

Outspake the ancient Amtman, At the gate of Helsingfors"Why comes this ship a-spyingIn the track of England's wars?"

"God bless her, " said the coast-guard, --"God bless the ship, I say. The holy angels trim the sailsThat speed her on her way!

"Where'er she drops her anchor, The peasant's heart is glad;Where'er she spreads her parting sail, The peasant's heart is sad. 

"Each wasted town and hamletShe visits to restore;To roof the shattered cabin, And feed the starving poor. 

"The sunken boats of fishers, The foraged beeves and grain, The spoil of flake and storehouse, The good ship brings again. 

"And so to Finland's sorrowThe sweet amend is made, As if the healing hand of ChristUpon her wounds were laid!"

Then said the gray old Amtman, "The will of God be done!The battle lost by England's hate, By England's love is won!

"We braved the iron tempestThat thundered on our shore;But when did kindness fail to findThe key to Finland's door?

"No more from Aland's rampartsShall warning signal come, Nor startled Sweaborg hear againThe roll of midnight drum. 

"Beside our fierce Black EagleThe Dove of Peace shall rest;And in the mouths of cannonThe sea-bird make her nest. 

"For Finland, looking seaward, No coming foe shall scan;And the holy bells of AboShall ring, 'Good-will to man!'

"Then row thy boat, O fisher!In peace on lake and bay;And thou, young maiden, dance againAround the poles of May!

"Sit down, old men, together, Old wives, in quiet spin;Henceforth the Anglo-SaxonIs the brother of the Finn!"1856. 

THE EVE OF ELECTION. 

FROM gold to grayOur mild sweet dayOf Indian Summer fades too soon;But tenderlyAbove the seaHangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon. 

In its pale fire, The village spireShows like the zodiac's spectral lance;The painted wallsWhereon it fallsTransfigured stand in marble trance!

O'er fallen leavesThe west-wind grieves, Yet comes a seed-time round again;And morn shall seeThe State sown freeWith baleful tares or healthful grain. 

Along the streetThe shadows meetOf Destiny, whose hands concealThe moulds of fateThat shape the State, And make or mar the common weal. 

Around I seeThe powers that be;I stand by Empire's primal springs;And princes meet, In every street, And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!

Hark! through the crowdThe laugh runs loud, Beneath the sad, rebuking moon. God save the landA careless handMay shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!

No jest is this;One cast amissMay blast the hope of Freedom's year. Oh, take me whereAre hearts of prayer, And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!

Not lightly fallBeyond recallThe written scrolls a breath can float;The crowning factThe kingliest actOf Freedom is the freeman's vote!

For pearls that gemA diademThe diver in the deep sea dies;The regal rightWe boast to-nightIs ours through costlier sacrifice;

The blood of Vane, His prison painWho traced the path the Pilgrim trod, And hers whose faithDrew strength from death, And prayed her Russell up to God!

Our hearts grow cold, We lightly holdA right which brave men died to gain;The stake, the cord, The axe, the sword, Grim nurses at its birth of pain. 

The shadow rend, And o'er us bend, O martyrs, with your crowns and palms;Breathe through these throngsYour battle songs, Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms. 

Look from the sky, Like God's great eye, Thou solemn moon, with searching beam, Till in the sightOf thy pure lightOur mean self-seekings meaner seem. 

Shame from our heartsUnworthy arts, The fraud designed, the purpose dark;And smite awayThe hands we layProfanely on the sacred ark. 

To party claimsAnd private aims, Reveal that august face of Truth, Whereto are givenThe age of heaven, The beauty of immortal youth. 

So shall our voiceOf sovereign choiceSwell the deep bass of duty done, And strike the keyOf time to be, When God and man shall speak as one!1858. 

FROM PERUGIA. 

"The thing which has the most dissevered the people from the Pope, --theunforgivable thing, --the breaking point between him and them, --has beenthe encouragement and promotion he gave to the officer under whom wereexecuted the slaughters of Perugia. That made the breaking point in manyhonest hearts that had clung to him before. "--HARRIET BEECHER STOWE'SLetters from Italy. 

The tall, sallow guardsmen their horsetails have spread, Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red;And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff, And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff;Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth, Each a lord of the church and a prince of the earth. 

What's this squeak of the fife, and this batter of drumLo! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia come;The militant angels, whose sabres drive homeTo the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and abhorred, The good Father's missives, and "Thus saith the Lord!"And lend to his logic the point of the sword!

O maids of Etruria, gazing forlornO'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn!O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame!O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name!Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves, And his tender compassion of prisons and graves!

There they stand, the hired stabbers, the blood-stains yet fresh, That splashed like red wine from the vintage of flesh;Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rackHow the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack;But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords, And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words!

Off with hats, down with knees, shout your vivas like mad!Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad, From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the quick, Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick, Who the role of the priest and the soldier unites, And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights!

Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whomWe sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome;With whose advent we dreamed the new era beganWhen the priest should be human, the monk be a man?Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl, When freedom we trust to the crosier and cowl!

Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hangman-faced Swiss--(A blessing for him surely can't go amiss)--Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss. Short shrift will suffice him, --he's blest beyond doubt;But there 's blood on his hands which would scarcely wash out, Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout!

Make way for the next! Here's another sweet sonWhat's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done?He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid!)At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did. And the mothers? Don't name them! these humors of warThey who keep him in service must pardon him for. 

Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat, With the heart of a wolf, and the stealth of a cat(As if Judas and Herod together were rolled), Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and gold, Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence, And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence!

Who doubts Antonelli? Have miracles ceasedWhen robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest?When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board, The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword, When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head, And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead!

There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed wayThat they did when they rang for Bartholomew's day. Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys, Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise. Te Deum laudamus! All round without stintThe incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't!

And now for the blessing! Of little account, You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount. Its giver was landless, His raiment was poor, No jewelled tiara His fishermen wore;No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home, No Swiss guards! We order things better at Rome. 

So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak;Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak;Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again, With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain;Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban;For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!1858. 

ITALY. 

ACROSS the sea I heard the groansOf nations in the intervalsOf wind and wave. Their blood and bonesCried out in torture, crushed by thrones, And sucked by priestly cannibals. 

I dreamed of Freedom slowly gainedBy martyr meekness, patience, faith, And lo! an athlete grimly stained, With corded muscles battle-strained, Shouting it from the fields of death!

I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight, Among the clamoring thousands mute, I only know that God is right, And that the children of the lightShall tread the darkness under foot. 

I know the pent fire heaves its crust, That sultry skies the bolt will formTo smite them clear; that Nature mustThe balance of her powers adjust, Though with the earthquake and the storm. 

God reigns, and let the earth rejoice!I bow before His sterner plan. Dumb are the organs of my choice;He speaks in battle's stormy voice, His praise is in the wrath of man!

Yet, surely as He lives, the dayOf peace He promised shall be ours, To fold the flags of war, and layIts sword and spear to rust away, And sow its ghastly fields with flowers!1860. 

FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 

WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forthIn blue Brazilian skies;And thou, O river, cleaving half the earthFrom sunset to sunrise, From the great mountains to the Atlantic wavesThy joy's long anthem pour. Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slavesShall shame thy pride no more. No fettered feet thy shaded margins press;But all men shall walk freeWhere thou, the high-priest of the wilderness, Hast wedded sea to sea. 

And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouthThe word of God is said, Once more, "Let there be light!"--Son of the South, Lift up thy honored head, Wear unashamed a crown by thy desertMore than by birth thy own, Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirtBy grateful hearts alone. The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, But safe shall justice prove;Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mailThe panoply of love. 

Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace, Thy future is secure;Who frees a people makes his statue's placeIn Time's Valhalla sure. Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian CzarStretches to thee his hand, Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, Wrote freedom on his land. And he whose grave is holy by our calmAnd prairied Sangamon, From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palmTo greet thee with "Well done!"

And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet, And let thy wail be stilled, To hear the Muse of prophecy repeatHer promise half fulfilled. The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, No sound thereof hath died;Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal willShall yet be satisfied. The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, And far the end may be;But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrongGo out and leave thee free. 1867. 

AFTER ELECTION. 

THE day's sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how!As on the thronged, unrestful townThe patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire. 

Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at firstBe strong, my heart, to know the worst!Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke;That sound from lake and prairie broke, That sunset-gun of triumph rentThe silence of a continent!

That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee?What strange, glad voice is that which callsFrom Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?

From Mississippi's fountain-headA sound as of the bison's tread!There rustled freedom's Charter OakIn that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!Cheer answers cheer from rise to setOf sun. We have a country yet!

The praise, O God, be thine alone!Thou givest not for bread a stone;Thou hast not led us through the nightTo blind us with returning light;Not through the furnace have we passed, To perish at its mouth at last. 

O night of peace, thy flight restrain!November's moon, be slow to wane!Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, On brows of prayer a blessing pour;And give, with full assurance blest, The weary heart of Freedom rest!1868. 

DISARMAMENT. 

"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once moreSpeaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reapedAnd left dry ashes; over trenches heapedWith nameless dead; o'er cities starving slowUnder a rain of fire; through wards of woeDown which a groaning diapason runsFrom tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sonsOf desolate women in their far-off homes, Waiting to hear the step that never comes!O men and brothers! let that voice be heard. War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!

Fear not the end. There is a story toldIn Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sitWith grave responses listening unto itOnce, on the errands of his mercy bent, Buddha, the holy and benevolent, Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook. "O son of peace!" the giant cried, "thy fateIs sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate. "The unarmed Buddha looking, with no traceOf fear or anger, in the monster's face, In pity said: "Poor fiend, even thee I love. "Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sankTo hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrankInto the form and fashion of a dove;And where the thunder of its rage was heard, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird"Hate hath no harm for love, " so ran the song;"And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!"1871. 

THE PROBLEM. 

I. NOT without envy Wealth at times must lookOn their brown strength who wield the reaping-hookAnd scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the ploughOr the steel harness of the steeds of steam;All who, by skill and patience, anyhowMake service noble, and the earth redeemFrom savageness. By kingly accoladeThan theirs was never worthier knighthood made. Well for them, if, while demagogues their vainAnd evil counsels proffer, they maintainTheir honest manhood unseduced, and wageNo war with Labor's right to Labor's gainOf sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain, And softer pillow for the head of Age. 

II. And well for Gain if it ungrudging yieldsLabor its just demand; and well for EaseIf in the uses of its own, it seesNo wrong to him who tills its pleasant fieldsAnd spreads the table of its luxuries. The interests of the rich man and the poorAre one and same, inseparable evermore;And, when scant wage or labor fail to giveFood, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live, Need has its rights, necessity its claim. Yea, even self-wrought misery and shameTest well the charity suffering long and kind. The home-pressed question of the age can findNo answer in the catch-words of the blindLeaders of blind. Solution there is noneSave in the Golden Rule of Christ alone. 1877. 

OUR COUNTRY. 

Read at Woodstock, Conn. , July 4, 1883. 

WE give thy natal day to hope, O Country of our love and prayer IThy way is down no fatal slope, But up to freer sun and air. 

Tried as by furnace-fires, and yetBy God's grace only stronger made, In future tasks before thee setThou shalt not lack the old-time aid. 

The fathers sleep, but men remainAs wise, as true, and brave as they;Why count the loss and not the gain?The best is that we have to-day. 

Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime, Within thy mighty bounds transpires, With speed defying space and timeComes to us on the accusing wires;

While of thy wealth of noble deeds, Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold, The love that pleads for human needs, The wrong redressed, but half is told!

We read each felon's chronicle, His acts, his words, his gallows-mood;We know the single sinner wellAnd not the nine and ninety good. 

Yet if, on daily scandals fed, We seem at times to doubt thy worth, We know thee still, when all is said, The best and dearest spot on earth. 

From the warm Mexic Gulf, or whereBelted with flowers Los AngelesBasks in the semi-tropic air, To where Katahdin's cedar trees

Are dwarfed and bent by Northern winds, Thy plenty's horn is yearly filled;Alone, the rounding century findsThy liberal soil by free hands tilled. 

A refuge for the wronged and poor, Thy generous heart has borne the blameThat, with them, through thy open door, The old world's evil outcasts came. 

But, with thy just and equal rule, And labor's need and breadth of lands, Free press and rostrum, church and school, Thy sure, if slow, transforming hands

Shall mould even them to thy design, Making a blessing of the ban;And Freedom's chemistry combineThe alien elements of man. 

The power that broke their prison barAnd set the dusky millions free, And welded in the flame of warThe Union fast to Liberty, Shall it not deal with other ills, Redress the red man's grievance, breakThe Circean cup which shames and kills, And Labor full requital make?

Alone to such as fitly bearThy civic honors bid them fall?And call thy daughters forth to shareThe rights and duties pledged to all?

Give every child his right of school, Merge private greed in public good, And spare a treasury overfullThe tax upon a poor man's food?

No lack was in thy primal stock, No weakling founders builded here;Thine were the men of Plymouth Rock, The Huguenot and Cavalier;

And they whose firm endurance gainedThe freedom of the souls of men, Whose hands, unstained with blood, maintainedThe swordless commonwealth of Penn. 

And thine shall be the power of allTo do the work which duty bids, And make the people's council hallAs lasting as the Pyramids!

Well have thy later years made goodThy brave-said word a century back, The pledge of human brotherhood, The equal claim of white and black. 

That word still echoes round the world, And all who hear it turn to thee, And read upon thy flag unfurledThe prophecies of destiny. 

Thy great world-lesson all shall learn, The nations in thy school shall sit, Earth's farthest mountain-tops shall burnWith watch-fires from thy own uplit. 

Great without seeking to be greatBy fraud or conquest, rich in gold, But richer in the large estateOf virtue which thy children hold, With peace that comes of purityAnd strength to simple justice due, So runs our loyal dream of thee;God of our fathers! make it true. 

O Land of lands! to thee we giveOur prayers, our hopes, our service free;For thee thy sons shall nobly live, And at thy need shall die for thee!

ON THE BIG HORN. 

In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custerand his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one ofthe fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow's poem on themassacre, these lines will be remembered:--

 "Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face, "Revenge upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair!" And the mountains dark and high From their crags reechoed the cry Of his anger and despair. 

He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, September 28, 1886: "Rain-in-the-Face is very anxious to go toHampton. I fear he is too old, but he desires very much to go. " TheSouthern Workman, the organ of General Armstrong's Industrial School atHampton, Va. , says in a late number:--

"Rain-in-the-Face has applied before to come to Hampton, but his agewould exclude him from the school as an ordinary student. He has shownhimself very much in earnest about it, and is anxious, all say, to learnthe better ways of life. It is as unusual as it is striking to see a manof his age, and one who has had such an experience, willing to give upthe old way, and put himself in the position of a boy and a student. "

THE years are but half a score, And the war-whoop sounds no moreWith the blast of bugles, whereStraight into a slaughter pen, With his doomed three hundred men, Rode the chief with the yellow hair. 

O Hampton, down by the sea!What voice is beseeching theeFor the scholar's lowliest place?Can this be the voice of himWho fought on the Big Horn's rim?Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?

His war-paint is washed away, His hands have forgotten to slay;He seeks for himself and his raceThe arts of peace and the loreThat give to the skilled hand moreThan the spoils of war and chase. 

O chief of the Christ-like school!Can the zeal of thy heart grow coolWhen the victor scarred with fightLike a child for thy guidance craves, And the faces of hunters and bravesAre turning to thee for light?

The hatchet lies overgrownWith grass by the Yellowstone, Wind River and Paw of Bear;And, in sign that foes are friends, Each lodge like a peace-pipe sendsIts smoke in the quiet air. 

The hands that have done the wrongTo right the wronged are strong, And the voice of a nation saith"Enough of the war of swords, Enough of the lying wordsAnd shame of a broken faith!"

The hills that have watched afarThe valleys ablaze with warShall look on the tasselled corn;And the dust of the grinded grain, Instead of the blood of the slain, Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!

The Ute and the wandering CrowShall know as the white men know, And fare as the white men fare;The pale and the red shall be brothers, One's rights shall be as another's, Home, School, and House of Prayer!

O mountains that climb to snow, O river winding below, Through meadows by war once trod, O wild, waste lands that awaitThe harvest exceeding great, Break forth into praise of God!1887. 

 NOTES

Note 1, page 18. The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautifulsonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, duringhis confinement in France. 

"Toussaint!--thou most unhappy man of menWhether the whistling rustic tends his ploughWithin thy hearing, or thou liest nowBuried in some deep dungeon's earless den;O miserable chieftain!--where and whenWilt thou find patience?--Yet, die not, do thouWear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow;Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behindPowers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies, --There's not a breathing of the common windThat will forget thee; thou hast great allies. Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind. "

Note 2, page 67. The Northern author of the Congressional rule againstreceiving petitions of the people on the subject of Slavery. 

Note 3, page 88. There was at the time when this poem was written anAssociation in Liberty County, Georgia, for the religious instruction ofnegroes. One of their annual reports contains an address by the Rev. Josiah Spry Law, in which the following passage occurs: "There is agrowing interest in this community in the religious instruction ofnegroes. There is a conviction that religious instruction promotes thequiet and order of the people, and the pecuniary interest of theowners. "

Note 4, page 117. The book-establishment of the Free-Will Baptists inDover was refused the act of incorporation by the New HampshireLegislature, for the reason that the newspaper organ of that sect andits leading preachers favored abolition. 

Note 5, page 118. The senatorial editor of the Belknap Gazette all alongmanifested a peculiar horror of "niggers" and "nigger parties. "

Note 6, page 118. The justice before whom Elder Storrs was brought forpreaching abolition on a writ drawn by Hon. M. N. , Jr. , of Pittsfield. The sheriff served the writ while the elder was praying. 

Note 7, page 118. The academy at Canaan, N. H. , received one or twocolored scholars, and was in consequence dragged off into a swamp byDemocratic teams. 

Note 8, page 119. "Papers and memorials touching the subject of slaveryshall be laid on the table without reading, debate, or reference. " Soread the gag-law, as it was called, introduced in the House by Mr. Atherton. 

Note 9, page 120. The Female Anti-Slavery Society, at its first meetingin Concord, was assailed with stones and brickbats. 

Note 10, page 168. The election of Charles Sumner to the United StatesSenate "followed bard upon" the rendition of the fugitive Sims by theUnited States officials and the armed police of Boston. 

Note 11, page 290. For the idea of this line, I am indebted to Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to the Rhodora, --

"If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being. "