s: As she stands before her lover, with raised face to


s: Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient


s: Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful


s: He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's


s: Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher


s: Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman


s: As the gregree holds his Fetich from the white


s: Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver's


s: Calls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields of


s: Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back


s: Scarce with look or word of censure, turns the


s: Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye is


s: Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never


s: And, at evening, when his comrades dance before


s: Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands he


s: God be praised for every instinct which rebels


s: Where the brute survives the human, and man's


s: As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral fold


s: Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in


s: Slow decays the forest monarch, closer girds the


s: Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine is in


s: So a base and bestial nature round the vassal's


s: And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the ceiba


s: God is Love, saith the Evangel; and our world of


s: Is made light and happy only when a Love is


s: Ye whose lives are free as sunshine, finding, where-


s: Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness, making all


s: In the veins of whose affections kindred blood is


s: Of one kindly current throbbing from the universal


s: Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in Slavery


s: Last flower of a lost Eden, blooming in that Soil


s: Love of Home, and Love of Woman!--dear to all,


s: To the heart whose pulses elsewhere measure only


s: All around the desert circles, underneath a brazen


s: Only one green spot remaining where the dew is


s: From the horror of that desert, from its atmosphere


s: Turns the fainting spirit thither, as the diver seeks


s: 'T is the fervid tropic noontime; faint and low the


s: Hazy rise the inland mountains through the glimmer


s: Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms,


s: Speaks her lover to the slave-girl, and she lifts her


s: "We shall live as slaves no longer! Freedom's


s: Rocks her bark upon the waters, rests the boat


s: "I have seen the Haytien Captain; I have seen


s: Haters of the pallid faces, to their race and color


s: "They have sworn to wait our coming till the night


s: And the gray and darkening waters roll above the


s: Oh, the blessed hope of freedom! how with joy


s: For an instant throbs her bosom, for an instant


s: But she looks across the valley, where her mother's


s: Through the snowy bloom of coffee, and the lemon-


s: And she answers, sad and earnest: "It were wrong


s: God hath heard thy prayer for freedom, and his


s: "Well I know with what endurance, for the sake


s: Thou hast borne too long a burden never meant


s: "Go; and at the hour of midnight, when our last


s: Kneeling on our place of parting, I will bless thee


s: "But for me, my mother, lying on her sick-bed


s: Lifts her weary head to watch me, coming through


s: "Should I leave her sick and helpless, even freedom,


s: Would be sadder far than bondage, lonely toil, and


s: "For my heart would die within me, and my brain


s: I should hear my mother calling through the twilight


s: Blazing upward from the ocean, shines the sun of


s: Through the coffee-trees in blossom, and green


s: Side by side, amidst the slave-gang, toil the lover


s: Wherefore looks he o'er the waters, leaning forward


s: Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he: 't is the Haytien's


s: Like a white cloud of the mountains, driven seaward


s: But his arm a light hand presses, and he hears a


s: Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom, Love is mightier


s: William Penn, in his admirable political pamphlet, England's


s: other curses; yet I declare I would not for the world incur this


s: curse, as every man deservedly doth, who offers violence to the


s: fundamental freedom thereby repeated and confirmed."


s: When, faint with watching, few and worn,


s: Where, beating back our thronging fears,


s: They died, their brave hearts breaking slow,


s: Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks.


s: One charge of fire shall drive them fast


s: Look! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain,


s: The bolts which shattered Shinar's tower


s: And hear, in winds that sweep your lakes


s: Written on learning the terms of the treaty with Mexico.


s: ACROSS the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's


s: The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's


s: From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and


s: Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;


s: And from the mountains of the east, to Santa


s: The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more.


s: O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple children


s: Close watch about their holy fire let maids of


s: Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines,


s: And Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her corn


s: For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes


s: Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad


s: Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the


s: Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from cold


s: Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein of


s: And, bending o'er his saddle, leaves the sunrise at


s: By many a lonely river, and gorge of fir and


s: On many a wintry hill-top, his nightly camp-fires


s: O countrymen and brothers! that land of lake and


s: Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat with


s: Of mountains white with winter, looking downward,


s: On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lapped


s: Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o'er


s: Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison's dusty


s: Great spaces yet untravelled, great lakes whose


s: The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars;


s: Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steeds


s: Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the


s: Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature's


s: Work out the Great Designer's will; all these ye


s: Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burden


s: God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across


s: Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised


s: Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail?


s: Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry


s: Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread


s: The day is breaking in the East of which the


s: And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian


s: Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to


s: Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs


s: The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations


s: And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul's


s: Is this, O countrymen of mine! a day for us to sow


s: The soil of new-gained empire with slavery's seeds


s: To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World's


s: Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, from


s: To run anew the evil race the old lost nations ran,


s: And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrong


s: Great Heaven! Is this our mission? End in this


s: The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger,


s: Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours in


s: A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outer


s: Where the far nations looked for light, a black-


s: Where for words of hope they listened, the long


s: The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us it


s: With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in


s: This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we


s: This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or


s: Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy


s: We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing


s: By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and


s: By all the warning words of truth with which the


s: By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes


s: Their faint and trembling beams across the black-


s: And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth's


s: O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the


s: So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on his


s: To wed Penobseot's waters to San Francisco's bay;


s: To make the rugged places smooth, and sow the


s: And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible in his


s: The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall


s: And mountain unto mountain call, Praise God, for


s: An earthquake blast that would have tossed


s: On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore,


s: Stretched in the broad court of the khan,


s: Stands black against the pale star-glow,


s: There watch and pine the Christian slaves;


s: Now wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer;


s: They sleep with Him, they are not slaves.


s: The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'er


s: The short, sharp clang of meeting steel!


s: Soiled with the battle's stain, and worn


s: Through hottest wastes of rock and sand,


s: Home, name, and life for Freedom's sake.


s: She saw the white spire through the trees,


s: "Why, bless your soul, the wench's a slave,


s: Then down with pulpit, down with priest,


s: Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast


s: On, swift and still! the conscious street


s: The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins


s: Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark?


s: Your traffic thrives, where Freedom dies,


s: Your hoards are great, your walls are strong,


s: That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet,


s: A Pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout


s: The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt


s: That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh?


s: Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie


s: Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety!


s: The pirate, watching from his bloody deck


s: The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold


s: While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told;


s: The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross


s: On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss


s: From his own carbine, glancing still abroad


s: For some new victim, offering thanks to God!


s: Rome, listening at her altars to the cry


s: Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell


s: Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell


s: And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high,


s: "Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!"


s: What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black


s: As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?


s: Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays


s: His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase


s: And saintly posture, gives to God the praise


s: What marvel, then, in our own time to see


s: Of Hope against three million soups of men,--


s: Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed,--and then,


s: With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee,


s: Whining a prayer for help to hide the key!


s: I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,


s: Marched handcuffed down that sworded street,


s: Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,


s: Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,


s: So shalt thou clothe with life the hope,


s: Shalt win their grateful thanks at last;


s: When North and South shall strive no more,


s: Sits choosing from some Caliph's daughters,


s: Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet.


s: Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes,


s: And reads the ten commandments backward.


s: Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep


s: God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late,


s: Give ermined knaves their hour of crime;


s: This poem and the three following were called out by the popular


s: No pause, nor rest, save where the streams


s: LAST week--the Lord be praised for all His mercies


s: Safe at the Mission, via Westport; where


s: In shirts of tar, and feather-doublets quilted


s: With forty stripes save one, all Yankee comers,


s: The prize of the high calling of the saints,


s: Who plant amidst this heathen wilderness


s: With prayer, as was most fitting. Half an hour,


s: Or thereaway, I groaned, and strove, and wrestled,


s: Fell on the people, and they cried 'Amen!'


s: "Glory to God!" and stamped and clapped their hands;


s: And the rough river boatmen wiped their eyes;


s: "Cursed be Cannan." After prayer, the meeting


s: A local preacher, three or four class-leaders,


s: Anxious inquirers, and renewed backsliders,


s: A score in all--to watch the river ferry,


s: (As they of old did watch the fords of Jordan,)


s: And cut off all whose Yankee tongues refuse


s: Drinking with thirsty souls of the sincere


s: Here, at the Mission, all things have gone well


s: The brother who, throughout my absence, acted


s: A first-rate hand, but obstinate and sullen.


s: He ran away some time last spring, and hid


s: In the river timber. There my Indian converts


s: Found him, and treed and shot him. For the rest,


s: The influence of our pious ministrations


s: And works of love; and some of them already


s: As sober Christians! Bless the Lord for this!


s: I know it will rejoice you. You, I hear,


s: To fight with the wild beasts of Ephesus,


s: Long John, and Dutch Free-Soilers. May your arm


s: Be clothed with strength, and on your tongue be found


s: P.S. All's lost. Even while I write these lines,


s: Upon us like a flood--grim, stalwart men,


s: Each face set like a flint of Plymouth Rock


s: Or squatting by the mellow-bottomed Kansas;


s: The small rain-patter, ere the thunder shower


s: Drowns the dry prairies. Hope from man is not.


s: Snug naval chaplaincy, or clerkship, where


s: These rumors of free labor and free soil


s: Door-keeper in the White House, than to dwell


s: Amidst these Yankee tents, that, whitening, show


s: On the green prairie like a fleet becalmed.


s: Methinks I hear a voice come up the river


s: From those far bayous, where the alligators


s: Mount guard around the camping filibusters


s: "Shake off the dust of Kansas. Turn to Cuba--


s: Keep pace with Providence, or, as we say,


s: The message of our gospel, thither borne


s: Upon the point of Quitman's bowie-knife,


s: And the persuasive lips of Colt's revolvers.


s: There may'st thou, underneath thy vine and figtree,


s: Calm as a patriarch in his eastern tent!"


s: Amen: So mote it be. So prays your friend.


s: Thomas Barber was shot December 6, 1855, near Lawrence, Kansas.


s: Still upward turned, with anxious strain,


s: And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last


s: Up, laggards of Freedom!--our free flag is cast


s: To the blaze of the sun and the wings of the blast;


s: Will ye turn from a struggle so bravely begun,


s: From a foe that is breaking, a field that's half won?


s: Whoso loves not his kind, and who fears not the Lord,


s: Let him join that foe's service, accursed and abhorred


s: Let him do his base will, as the slave only can,--


s: Let him put on the bloodhound, and put off the Man!


s: Let him go where the cold blood that creeps in his veins


s: Shall stiffen the slave-whip, and rust on his chains;


s: Where the black slave shall laugh in his bonds, to behold


s: The White Slave beside him, self-fettered and sold!


s: But ye, who still boast of hearts beating and warm,


s: Rise, from lake shore and ocean's, like waves in a storm,


s: Come, throng round our banner in Liberty's name,


s: Like winds from your mountains, like prairies aflame!


s: Our foe, hidden long in his ambush of night,


s: Now, forced from his covert, stands black in the light.


s: Oh, the cruel to Man, and the hateful to God,


s: Smite him down to the earth, that is cursed where he trod!


s: For deeper than thunder of summer's loud shower,


s: On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour!


s: Shall we falter before what we've prayed for so long,


s: When the Wrong is so weak, and the Right is so strong?


s: Come forth all together! come old and come young,


s: Freedom's vote in each hand, and her song on each tongue;


s: Truth naked is stronger than Falsehood in mail;


s: The Wrong cannot prosper, the Right cannot fail.


s: Like leaves of the summer once numbered the foe,


s: But the hoar-frost is falling, the northern winds blow;


s: Like leaves of November erelong shall they fall,


s: For earth wearies of them, and God's over all!


s: Far-rolling ere the downright lightnings glare;


s: The hills blaze red with warnings; foes draw nigh,


s: Treading the dark with challenge and reply.


s: Behold the burden of the prophet's vision;


s: The gathering hosts,--the Valley of Decision,


s: Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling o'er.


s: Day of the Lord, of darkness and not light!


s: It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind's roar


s: Turn and o'erturn, end what Thou bast begun


s: If but the least and frailest, let me be


s: I fain would thank Thee that my mortal life


s: Has reached the hour (albeit through care and pain)


s: When Good and Evil, as for final strife,


s: Close dim and vast on Armageddon's plain;


s: Drive howling back the Spirits of the Night.


s: Oh for the faith to read the signs aright


s: And, from the angle of Thy perfect sight,


s: See Truth's white banner floating on before;


s: And the Good Cause, despite of venal friends,


s: And base expedients, move to noble ends;


s: See Peace with Freedom make to Time amends,


s: And, through its cloud of dust, the threshing-floor,


s: Flailed by the thunder, heaped with chaffless grain


s: THROUGH the long hall the shuttered windows shed


s: On locks like those of Absalom the fair,


s: On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair,


s: On blank indifference and on curious stare;


s: On the pale Showman reading from his stage


s: Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit


s: Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot,


s: And the shrill call, across the general din,


s: "Roll up your curtain! Let the show begin!"


s: At length a murmur like the winds that break


s: Into green waves the prairie's grassy lake,


s: Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud,


s: And, as the west-wind lifts a summer cloud,


s: The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far


s: A green land stretching to the evening star,


s: And flowers hummed over by the desert bees,


s: Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show


s: The slow result of patient Nature's pains,


s: And plastic fingering of her sun and rains;


s: Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall,


s: And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall,


s: Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine,


s: Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine;


s: Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed;


s: Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells surpass


s: The Tartar's marvels of his Land of Grass,


s: Vast as the sky against whose sunset shores


s: Wave after wave the billowy greenness pours;


s: And, onward still, like islands in that main


s: Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain chain,


s: Whence east and west a thousand waters run


s: From winter lingering under summer's sun.


s: And, still beyond, long lines of foam and sand


s: Tell where Pacific rolls his waves a-land,


s: From many a wide-lapped port and land-locked bay,


s: Opening with thunderous pomp the world's highway


s: To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far Cathay.


s: "Such," said the Showman, as the curtain fell,


s: The land of promise to the swarming North,


s: Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus forth,


s: To the poor Southron on his worn-out soil,


s: Scathed by the curses of unnatural toil;


s: To Europe's exiles seeking home and rest,


s: And the lank nomads of the wandering West,


s: Who, asking neither, in their love of change


s: And the free bison's amplitude of range,


s: Rear the log-hut, for present shelter meant,


s: Not future comfort, like an Arab's tent."


s: Then spake a shrewd on-looker, "Sir," said he,


s: "I like your picture, but I fain would see


s: A sketch of what your promised land will be


s: When, with electric nerve, and fiery-brained,


s: With Nature's forces to its chariot chained,


s: The future grasping, by the past obeyed,


s: The twentieth century rounds a new decade."


s: Then said the Showman, sadly: "He who grieves


s: Over the scattering of the sibyl's leaves


s: Unwisely mourns. Suffice it, that we know


s: What needs must ripen from the seed we sow;


s: That present time is but the mould wherein


s: Its lust of gold, its strife for place and power;


s: Its lack of manhood, honor, reverence, truth,


s: Wise-thoughted age, and generous-hearted youth;


s: The low, far lights, which on th' horizon shine,


s: Like those which sometimes tremble on the rim


s: Of clouded skies when day is closing dim,


s: Flashing athwart the purple spears of rain


s: I need no prophet's word, nor shapes that pass


s: Like clouding shadows o'er a magic glass;


s: Or warning look to guide us in our choice;


s: With spectral hands outreaching through the gloom


s: The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom.


s: Transferred from these, it now remains to give


s: The sun and shade of Fate's alternative."


s: Then, with a burst of music, touching all


s: The keys of thrifty life,--the mill-stream's fall,


s: The engine's pant along its quivering rails,


s: The anvil's ring, the measured beat of flails,


s: The sweep of scythes, the reaper's whistled tune,


s: Answering the summons of the bells of noon,


s: The woodman's hail along the river shores,


s: The steamboat's signal, and the dip of oars


s: Fair as God's garden. Broad on either hand


s: The golden wheat-fields glimmered in the sun,


s: And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun.


s: Smooth highways set with hedge-rows living green,


s: With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen,


s: The school-house murmuring with its hive-like swarm,


s: The brook-bank whitening in the grist-mill's storm,


s: The painted farm-house shining through the leaves


s: Of fruited orchards bending at its eaves,


s: Where live again, around the Western hearth,


s: The homely old-time virtues of the North;


s: Where the blithe housewife rises with the day,


s: And well-paid labor counts his task a play.


s: Of diverse-sects and differing names the shrines,


s: One in their faith, whate'er their outward signs,


s: Like varying strophes of the same sweet hymn


s: From many a prairie's swell and river's brim,


s: A thousand church-spires sanctify the air


s: Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign of prayer.


s: Like sudden nightfall over bloom and green


s: The curtain dropped: and, momently, between


s: The clank of fetter and the crack of thong,


s: Half sob, half laughter, music swept along;


s: A strange refrain, whose idle words and low,


s: Like drunken mourners, kept the time of woe;


s: Heard in the distance funeral marches played.


s: Such music, dashing all his smiles with tears,


s: The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears,


s: Where, through the noonday dusk of wooded shores


s: With a wild pathos borrowed of his wrong


s: Redeems the jargon of his senseless song.


s: "Look," said the Showman, sternly, as he rolled


s: His curtain upward. "Fate's reverse behold!"


s: With "Slaves at Auction!" garnishing its walls;


s: The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous and loud,


s: A squire or colonel in his pride of place,


s: Known at free fights, the caucus, and the race,


s: Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot,


s: And silence doubters with a ten-pace shot,


s: Yet never scrupling, with a filthy jest,


s: To sell the infant from its mother's breast,


s: Break through all ties of wedlock, home, and kin,


s: Yield shrinking girlhood up to graybeard sin;


s: Sell all the virtues with his human stock,


s: The Christian graces on his auction-block,


s: And coolly count on shrewdest bargains driven


s: In hearts regenerate, and in souls forgiven!


s: Look once again! The moving canvas shows


s: Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds,


s: The human chattel eats, and sleeps, and breeds;


s: And, held a brute, in practice, as in law,


s: Becomes in fact the thing he's taken for.


s: There, early summoned to the hemp and corn,


s: The nursing mother leaves her child new-born;


s: There haggard sickness, weak and deathly faint,


s: Crawls to his task, and fears to make complaint;


s: And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in decay,


s: Weep for their lost ones sold and torn away!


s: Of ampler size the master's dwelling stands,


s: In shabby keeping with his half-tilled lands;


s: The gates unhinged, the yard with weeds unclean,


s: Without, loose-scattered like a wreck adrift,


s: Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift;


s: The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, born


s: In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn


s: There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene,


s: Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean,


s: From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise,


s: Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies,


s: Taint infant lips beyond all after cure,


s: With the fell poison of a breast impure;


s: Touch boyhood's passions with the breath of flame,


s: From girlhood's instincts steal the blush of shame.


s: So swells, from low to high, from weak to strong,


s: Guilty or guiltless, all within its range


s: Feel the blind justice of its sure revenge.


s: Still scenes like these the moving chart reveals.


s: Up the long western steppes the blighting steals;


s: From sea to sea the drear eclipse is thrown,


s: From sea to sea the Mauvaises Terres have grown,


s: A belt of curses on the New World's zone!


s: The curtain fell. All drew a freer breath,


s: As men are wont to do when mournful death


s: Is covered from their sight. The Showman stood


s: One moment, then with sudden gesture shook


s: His loose hair back, and with the air and look


s: Of one who felt, beyond the narrow stage


s: And listening group, the presence of the age,


s: And heard the footsteps of the things to be,


s: Poured out his soul in earnest words and free.


s: "O friends!" he said, "in this poor trick of paint


s: You see the semblance, incomplete and faint,


s: Of the two-fronted Future, which, to-day,


s: Stands dim and silent, waiting in your way.


s: To-day, your servant, subject to your will;


s: If the dark face of Slavery on you turns,


s: If the mad curse its paper barrier spurns,


s: If the world granary of the West is made


s: The last foul market of the slaver's trade,


s: Why rail at fate? The mischief is your own.


s: Why hate your neighbor? Blame yourselves


s: "Men of the North! The South you charge with wrong


s: Is weak and poor, while you are rich and strong.


s: The old-time monks and Paduan doctors chose,--


s: Mere ghosts of questions, tariffs, and dead banks,


s: And scarecrow pontiffs, never broke your ranks,


s: Your thews united could, at once, roll back


s: Nay, were you simply steadfast, manly, just,


s: True to the faith your fathers left in trust,


s: If stainless honor outweighed in your scale


s: Full many a noble heart, (and such remain


s: In all the South, like Lot in Siddim's plain,


s: Who watch and wait, and from the wrong's control


s: Keep white and pure their chastity of soul,)


s: Now sick to loathing of your weak complaints,


s: Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as saints,


s: Would half-way meet the frankness of your tone,


s: And feel their pulses beating with your own.


s: "The North! the South! no geographic line


s: Can fix the boundary or the point define,


s: Since each with each so closely interblends,


s: Where Slavery rises, and where Freedom ends.


s: Beneath your rocks the roots, far-reaching, hide


s: The tree whose branches in your northwinds wave


s: Dropped its young blossoms on Mount Vernon's grave;


s: The nursling growth of Monticello's crest


s: Virginia listened from thy lips, Rantoul;


s: Seward's words of power, and Sumner's fresh renown,


s: Flow from the pen that Jefferson laid down!


s: And when, at length, her years of madness o'er,


s: Like the crowned grazer on Euphrates' shore,


s: From her long lapse to savagery, her mouth


s: Bitter with baneful herbage, turns the South,


s: Resumes her old attire, and seeks to smooth


s: Her unkempt tresses at the glass of truth,


s: Her early faith shall find a tongue again,


s: New Wythes and Pinckneys swell that old refrain,


s: Her sons with yours renew the ancient pact,


s: Then, if one murmur mars the wide content,


s: Some Northern lip will drawl the last dissent,


s: "Grant that the North 's insulted, scorned, betrayed,


s: O'erreached in bargains with her neighbor made,


s: When selfish thrift and party held the scales


s: Whom shall we strike? Who most deserves our blame?


s: And bold as wicked, crashing straight through all


s: That bars his purpose, like a cannon-ball?


s: Or the mean traitor, breathing northern air,


s: Whose cant the loss of principle survives,


s: As the mud-turtle e'en its head outlives;


s: Who, caught, chin-buried in some foul offence,


s: And consecrates his baseness to the cause


s: "Praise to the place-man who can hold aloof


s: His still unpurchased manhood, office-proof;


s: And leaves it only rich in self-respect;


s: As More maintained his virtue's lofty port


s: In the Eighth Henry's base and bloody court.


s: But, if exceptions here and there are found,


s: Who tread thus safely on enchanted ground,


s: The normal type, the fitting symbol still


s: Is the chained dog beside his master's door,


s: "Give me the heroes who, at tuck of drum,


s: Or they who, doubly armed with vote and gun,


s: Following thy lead, illustrious Atchison,


s: Their drunken franchise shift from scene to scene,


s: As tile-beard Jourdan did his guillotine!


s: Rather than him who, born beneath our skies,


s: To Slavery's hand its supplest tool supplies;


s: Looks from the pillory of his bribe of place,


s: Points to the footmarks of indignant scorn,


s: Shows the deep scars of satire's tossing horn;


s: Of all that makes a scoundrel's martyrdom!


s: "Bane of the North, its canker and its moth!


s: These modern Esaus, bartering rights for broth!


s: Taxing our justice, with their double claim,


s: As fools for pity, and as knaves for blame;


s: Who, urged by party, sect, or trade, within


s: The fell embrace of Slavery's sphere of sin,


s: Part at the outset with their moral sense,


s: The watchful angel set for Truth's defence;


s: Confound all contrasts, good and ill; reverse


s: The poles of life, its blessing and its curse;


s: And lose thenceforth from their perverted sight


s: The eternal difference 'twixt the wrong and right;


s: Than simple sanction of the master's claim,


s: Dragged in the slime of Slavery's loathsome trail,


s: "Such are the men who, with instinctive dread,


s: Whenever Freedom lifts her drooping head,


s: Make prophet-tripods of their office-stools,


s: And scare the nurseries and the village schools


s: With dire presage of ruin grim and great,


s: Such are the patriots, self-bound to the stake


s: Of office, martyrs for their country's sake


s: Who fill themselves the hungry jaws of Fate;


s: And by their loss of manhood save the State.


s: In the wide gulf themselves like Cortius throw,


s: As tropic monkeys, linking heads and tails,


s: Bridge o'er some torrent of Ecuador's vales!


s: "Such are the men who in your churches rave


s: To swearing-point, at mention of the slave!


s: Stammers of freedom in his timid prayers;


s: Steals northward, volunteer to hunt him down.


s: Or, if some neighbor, flying from disease,


s: Courts the mild balsam of the Southern breeze,


s: With hue and cry pursue him on his track,


s: And write Free-soiler on the poor man's back.


s: Such are the men who leave the pedler's cart,


s: While faring South, to learn the driver's art,


s: Or, in white neckcloth, soothe with pious aim


s: The graceful sorrows of some languid dame,


s: Who, from the wreck of her bereavement, saves


s: The double charm of widowhood and slaves


s: Pliant and apt, they lose no chance to show


s: Poise a tarred schoolmate on the lyncher's rail,


s: Or make a bonfire of their birthplace mail!


s: "So some poor wretch, whose lips no longer bear


s: The sacred burden of his mother's prayer,


s: By fear impelled, or lust of gold enticed,


s: Turns to the Crescent from the Cross of Christ,


s: Crawls prostrate where the faithful only kneel,


s: Out-howls the Dervish, hugs his rags to court


s: And, when beneath the city gateway's span


s: And through its midst, pursued by Islam's prayers,


s: The prophet's Word some favored camel bears,


s: The marked apostate has his place assigned


s: With brush and pitcher following, grave and mute,


s: "Men of the North! beneath your very eyes,


s: By hearth and home, your real danger lies.


s: Still day by day some hold of freedom falls


s: Through home-bred traitors fed within its walls.


s: Men whom yourselves with vote and purse sustain,


s: The right of Slavery to your sons to teach,


s: And 'South-side' Gospels in your pulpits preach,


s: Transfix the Law to ancient freedom dear


s: On the sharp point of her subverted spear,


s: The mad Missourian lynching from his stump;


s: Or, in your name, upon the Senate's floor


s: Yield up to Slavery all it asks, and more;


s: And, ere your dull eyes open to the cheat,


s: Sell your old homestead underneath your feet


s: While such as these your loftiest outlooks hold,


s: While truth and conscience with your wares are sold,


s: While grave-browed merchants band themselves to aid


s: An annual man-hunt for their Southern trade,


s: What moral power within your grasp remains


s: To stay the mischief on Nebraska's plains?


s: High as the tides of generous impulse flow,


s: And all your brave resolves, though aimed as true


s: To Slavery's bastions lend as slight a shock


s: As the poor trooper's shot to Stirling rock!


s: "Yet, while the need of Freedom's cause demands


s: The earnest efforts of your hearts and hands,


s: Urged by all motives that can prompt the heart


s: To prayer and toil and manhood's manliest part;


s: Though to the soul's deep tocsin Nature joins


s: The warning whisper of her Orphic pines,


s: The north-wind's anger, and the south-wind's sigh,


s: The midnight sword-dance of the northern sky,


s: And, to the ear that bends above the sod


s: Of the green grave-mounds in the Fields of God,


s: In low, deep murmurs of rebuke or cheer,


s: The land's dead fathers speak their hope or fear,


s: Yet let not Passion wrest from Reason's hand


s: Blame not the caution proffering to your zeal


s: A well-meant drag upon its hurrying wheel;


s: Nor chide the man whose honest doubt extends


s: To the means only, not the righteous ends;


s: Nor fail to weigh the scruples and the fears


s: In the long strife with evil which began


s: With the first lapse of new-created man,


s: To each his part,--some forward, some behind;


s: And they, too, serve who temper and restrain


s: The o'erwarm heart that sets on fire the brain.


s: True to yourselves, feed Freedom's altar-flame


s: With what you have; let others do the same.


s: "Spare timid doubters; set like flint your face


s: Against the self-sold knaves of gain and place


s: Cast out the traitors who infest the land;


s: From bar, press, pulpit, cast them everywhere,


s: By dint of fasting, if you fail by prayer.


s: And in their place bring men of antique mould,


s: Like the grave fathers of your Age of Gold;


s: Statesmen like those who sought the primal fount


s: Of righteous law, the Sermon on the Mount;


s: Lawyers who prize, like Quincy, (to our day


s: Still spared, Heaven bless him!) honor more than pay,


s: And Christian jurists, starry-pure, like Jay;


s: Preachers like Woolman, or like them who bore


s: The, faith of Wesley to our Western shore,


s: And held no convert genuine till he broke


s: Alike his servants' and the Devil's yoke;


s: And priests like him who Newport's market trod,


s: And o'er its slave-ships shook the bolts of God!


s: So shall your power, with a wise prudence used,


s: Strong but forbearing, firm but not abused,


s: Her natural home-born right to Freedom give,


s: And leave her foe his robber-right,--to live.


s: Live, as the snake does in his noisome fen!


s: Live, as the wolf does in his bone-strewn den!


s: Live, clothed with cursing like a robe of flame,


s: The focal point of million-fingered shame!


s: Live, till the Southron, who, with all his faults,


s: Has manly instincts, in his pride revolts,


s: Dashes from off him, midst the glad world's cheers,


s: The hideous nightmare of his dream of years,


s: And lifts, self-prompted, with his own right hand,


s: The vile encumbrance from his glorious land!


s: "So, wheresoe'er our destiny sends forth


s: Its widening circles to the South or North,


s: Where'er our banner flaunts beneath the stars


s: Its mimic splendors and its cloudlike bars,


s: There shall Free Labor's hardy children stand


s: The equal sovereigns of a slaveless land.


s: And when at last the hunted bison tires,


s: And dies o'ertaken by the squatter's fires;


s: And westward, wave on wave, the living flood


s: Breaks on the snow-line of majestic Hood;


s: And lonely Shasta listening hears the tread


s: Of Europe's fair-haired children, Hesper-led;


s: And, gazing downward through his boar-locks, sees


s: The Eastern sea shall hush his waves to hear


s: Pacific's surf-beat answer Freedom's cheer,


s: And one long rolling fire of triumph run


s: Between the sunrise and the sunset gun!"


s: My task is done. The Showman and his show,


s: Themselves but shadows, into shadows go;


s: Nor tints of beauty on the canvas flung;


s: If the harsh numbers grate on tender ears,


s: And the rough picture overwrought appears,


s: With deeper coloring, with a sterner blast,


s: Before my soul a voice and vision passed,


s: Such as might Milton's jarring trump require,


s: Or glooms of Dante fringed with lurid fire.


s: Oh, not of choice, for themes of public wrong


s: I leave the green and pleasant paths of song,


s: The mild, sweet words which soften and adorn,


s: For sharp rebuke and bitter laugh of scorn.


s: More dear to me some song of private worth,


s: Some summer pastoral of her inland vales,


s: Or, grim and weird, her winter fireside tales


s: Lost barks at parting hung from stem to helm


s: With prayers of love like dreams on Virgil's elm.


s: Nor private grief nor malice holds my pen;


s: And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer


s: Their woes and weakness to our Father bear,


s: Wherever fruits of Christian love are found


s: But the time passes. It were vain to crave


s: And shame his poor word with your nobler deed.


s: Touched with the light that cometh from above,


s: Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love,


s: No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would tear


s: In His compassionate gaze, grubbed smoothly out,


s: Of sleek oppression kneeling down to pray


s: Where the great oriel stains the Sabbath day!


s: Kneel on his velvet cushion; I, for one,


s: Or tend a prayer-wheel in Thibetar brooks,


s: Than that which through the quaint-carved Gothic door


s: Looks forth,--a Church without humanity!


s: Patron of pride, and prejudice, and wrong,--


s: The rich man's charm and fetich of the strong,


s: The Eternal Fulness meted, clipped, and shorn,


s: The dear Christ hidden from His kindred flesh,


s: And, in His poor ones, crucified afresh!


s: Where sweeps the storm Alechan's steppes along,


s: And wearying Buddha with his prayers to make


s: The figures living for the traveller's sake,


s: Than he who hopes with cheap praise to beguile


s: The ear of God, dishonoring man the while;


s: Who dreams the pearl gate's hinges, rusty grown,


s: Are moved by flattery's oil of tongue alone;


s: The generous deed weighs less than selfish prayers,


s: And words intoned with graceful unction move


s: The Eternal Goodness more than lives of truth and love.


s: Alas, the Church! The reverend head of Jay,


s: Enhaloed with its saintly silvered hair,


s: Adorns no more the places of her prayer;


s: And brave young Tyng, too early called away,


s: Troubles the Haman of her courts no more


s: Like the just Hebrew at the Assyrian's door;


s: And her sweet ritual, beautiful but dead


s: As the dry husk from which the grain is shed,


s: And holy hymns from which the life devout


s: Of saints and martyrs has wellnigh gone out,


s: For Sabbath use in measured grists are ground;


s: And, ever while the spiritual mill goes round,


s: Between the upper and the nether stones,


s: Unseen, unheard, the wretched bondman groans,


s: And urges his vain plea, prayer-smothered, anthem-drowned!


s: O heart of mine, keep patience! Looking forth,


s: Pure, just, and free, the Church of Christ on earth;


s: The martyr's dream, the golden age foretold!


s: And found, at last, the mystic Graal I see,


s: Brimmed with His blessing, pass from lip to lip


s: Songs of the love that casteth out all fear;


s: Lo! in the midst, with the same look He wore,


s: Healing and blessing on Genesaret's shore,


s: Folding together, with the all-tender might


s: Of His great love, the dark bands and the white,


s: Stands the Consoler, soothing every pain,


s: Making all burdens light, and breaking every chain.


s: The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows;


s: Where stand or fall her friends or foes,


s: STATESMAN, I thank thee! and, if yet dissent


s: Mingles, reluctant, with my large content,


s: But, while constrained to hold even Union less


s: Of peace, for wise calm words that put to shame


s: He may be bravest who, unweaponed, bears


s: The olive branch, and, strong in justice, spares


s: The rash wrong-doer, giving widest scope,


s: Of Freedom and the safeguard of its laws--


s: If, without yielding that for which alone


s: We prize the Union, thou canst save it now


s: A wreath whose flowers no earthly soil have known;


s: So on his Usk banks, in the blood-red dawn


s: Of England's civil strife, did careless Vaughan


s: Bemock his times. O friends of many years!


s: Though faith and trust are stronger than our fears,


s: And the signs promise peace with liberty,


s: Not thus we trifle with our country's tears


s: Is certain as God's truth; but, meanwhile, pain


s: Is bitter and tears are salt: our voices take


s: Are heavy with a nation's griefs and wrongs;


s: And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake


s: Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat,


s: The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning


s: The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,


s: Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,


s: THE firmament breaks up. In black eclipse


s: Light after light goes out. One evil star,


s: Luridly glaring through the smoke of war,


s: Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep


s: Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep


s: Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap


s: Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound?


s: What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage-ground


s: Our feet are planted: let us there remain


s: Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,


s: They break the links of Union: shall we light


s: The fires of hell to weld anew the chain


s: On that red anvil where each blow is pain?


s: As from our shoulders falls a load of death


s: Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore


s: When keen with life to a dead horror bound?


s: Why take we up the accursed thing again?


s: Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more


s: Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag


s: With its vile reptile-blazon. Let us press


s: The golden cluster on our brave old flag


s: In closer union, and, if numbering less,


s: Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain.


s: What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?


s: A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact,


s: And, taking counsel but of common sense,


s: To strike at cause as well as consequence.


s: Oh, never yet since Roland wound his horn


s: Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own,


s: Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn


s: It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,


s: To that Dark Power whose underlying crime


s: But if thine be the fate of all who break


s: The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their years


s: Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make


s: A lane for freedom through the level spears,


s: Still take thou courage! God has spoken through thee,


s: The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear


s: Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear.


s: Who would recall them now must first arrest


s: The winds that blow down from the free Northwest,


s: Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back


s: Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack


s: But the full time to harden into things.


s: Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,


s: The other's brows were scarred and knit,


s: "How long!"--I knew the voice of Peace,--


s: "What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?


s: One guards through love his ghastly throne,


s: And one through fear to reverence grown.


s: "Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait;


s: "Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,


s: "Still hope and trust," it sang; "the rod


s: You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will,


s: Lo!--presto, change! its claims you urge,


s: And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed


s: Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave


s: We praised you when your slaves went free


s: It is recorded that the Chians, when subjugated by Mithridates of


s: Blazed in the Cappadocian victor's hand?


s: And the vines shrivelled in the breath of war.


s: Slaves of your slaves, your doom shall be,


s: In Colchian mines by Phasis rolling dark."


s: "Woe! woe! The gods are sleepless-eyed!"


s: And, chained and scourged, the slaves of slaves,


s: To break, not wield, the scourge wet with their


s: The night-wind smooths with drifting sand


s: Sing on, poor hearts! your chant shall be


s: And, smothering down the wrath and shame


s: Stood silent,--where to speak was death.


s: The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!


s: Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps


s: And still she wears her fruits and flowers


s: The mirth that shakes the beard of grain


s: The hearts that blossom like her flowers,


s: Make swift the feet and straight the way


s: President Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation was issued


s: SAINT PATRICK, slave to Milcho of the herds


s: Out from the land of bondage, and be free!"


s: Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven


s: The angels singing of his sins forgiven,


s: His prison opening to their golden keys,


s: He rose a man who laid him down a slave,


s: Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,


s: And, passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,


s: Smarted with wrong, he prayed, "God pardon


s: So went he forth; but in God's time he came


s: To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame;


s: The land a saint that lost him as a slave.


s: Waiting for God, your hour at last has come,


s: Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong!


s: Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraint


s: Heap only on his head the coals of prayer.


s: Go forth, like him! like him return again,


s: To bless the land whereon in bitter pain


s: And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed.


s: ONCE more, dear friends, you meet beneath


s: Yet trouble springs not from the ground,


s: Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear,


s: To spare us; from our heads shall swerve


s: Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom


s: This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the


s: To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,


s: When Lee marched over the mountain-wall;


s: She took up the flag the men hauled down;


s: "Halt!"--the dust-brown ranks stood fast.


s: Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff


s: "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,


s: But spare your country's flag," she said.


s: And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.


s: Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.


s: Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew."


s: "We heard the starving prisoner's sighs,


s: And saw, from line and trench, your sons


s: And pain," I cried, "O wing-worn flocks?"


s: "We heard," they sang, "the freedman's song,


s: "And struggling up through sounds accursed,


s: It filled the listening heavens with prayer.


s: The song went with them in their flight;


s: "Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign,


s: And begged through all the land of France


s: Freighted with seven-score Christian souls


s: The Lord whose breath has filled her sail


s: We prayed and hoped; but still, with awe,


s: Has mined and heaved the hostile towers;


s: Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,


s: All streams that flow, all winds that blow,


s: IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame,


s: Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became


s: In after time drew forth their honeyed store


s: Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept


s: Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept


s: Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds,


s: Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds,


s: Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell,


s: With deeper peace in summer noons their hum


s: Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away


s: From Treason's death we draw a purer life,


s: A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife


s: The storm that swept through battle-days,


s: The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled.


s: Though there profaning gifts are thrown;


s: Still sacred, though thy name be breathed


s: And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed


s: Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood!


s: Still to those courts my footsteps turn,


s: For through the mists which darken there,


s: Through all disguise, form, place, or name,


s: And veiled His perfect brightness there.


s: Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's heart,


s: In thoughts which angels leaned to know,


s: Written on reading pamphlets published by clergymen against the


s: THE suns of eighteen centuries have shone


s: Since the Redeemer walked with man, and made


s: The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of stone,


s: And mountain moss, a pillow for His head;


s: And broke with publicans the bread of shame,


s: And drank with blessings, in His Father's name,


s: Altar and shrine and priest; and incense dim


s: Evermore rising, with low prayer and hymn,


s: From lips which press the temple's marble floor,


s: Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread cross He bore.


s: Yet as of old, when, meekly "doing good,"


s: With their dim earthly vision knew Him not,


s: How ill are His high teachings understood


s: Where He hath spoken Liberty, the priest


s: Where He hath bidden to Life's equal feast,


s: Where He hath spoken Peace, His name hath been


s: Priests, pale with vigils, in His name have blessed


s: The unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest,


s: Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine,


s: And crossed its blazon with the holy sign;


s: Yea, in His name who bade the erring live,


s: And daily taught His lesson, to forgive!


s: Twisted the cord and edged the murderous steel;


s: And, with His words of mercy on their lips,


s: Hung gloating o'er the pincer's burning grips,


s: And the grim horror of the straining wheel;


s: Fed the slow flame which gnawed the victim's limb,


s: Who saw before his searing eyeballs swim


s: The image of their Christ in cruel zeal,


s: Through the black torment-smoke, held mockingly to him!


s: The blood which mingled with the desert sand,


s: The white-sown bones of heretics, where'er


s: They sank beneath the Crusade's holy spear;


s: Goa's dark dungeons, Malta's sea-washed cell,


s: Where with the hymns the ghostly fathers sung


s: Mingled the groans by subtle torture wrung,


s: Heaven's anthem blending with the shriek of hell!


s: Of Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed flame


s: New England's scaffold, and the priestly sneer


s: Which mocked its victims in that hour of fear,


s: When guilt itself a human tear might claim,--


s: Bear witness, O Thou wronged and merciful One!


s: That Earth's most hateful crimes have in Thy


s: Thank God! that I have lived to see the time


s: When the great truth begins at last to find


s: An utterance from the deep heart of mankind,


s: Earnest and clear, that all Revenge is Crime,


s: That man is holier than a creed, that all


s: Restraint upon him must consult his good,


s: Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall,


s: The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught


s: Through long, dark centuries its way hath wrought


s: Into the common mind and popular thought;


s: And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore


s: The humble fishers listened with hushed oar,


s: Have found an echo in the general heart,


s: And of the public faith become a living part.


s: Who shall arrest this tendency? Bring back


s: The cells of Venice and the bigot's rack?


s: To cold indifference to a brother's pain?


s: From the mild sunshine of the Gospel day,


s: Grope in the shadows of Man's twilight time,


s: What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest ye brood,


s: O'er those foul altars streaming with warm blood,


s: To the dark, cruel past? Can ye not learn


s: From the pure Teacher's life how mildly free


s: The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no more


s: Through the green arches of the Druid's oak;


s: And ye of milder faith, with your high claim


s: Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest name,


s: Set up your scaffold-altars in our land,


s: And, consecrators of Law's darkest crime,


s: Urge to its loathsome work the hangman's hand?


s: Beware, lest human nature, roused at last,


s: From its peeled shoulder your encumbrance cast,


s: And, sick to loathing of your cry for blood,


s: Rank ye with those who led their victims round


s: The Celt's red altar and the Indian's mound,


s: Abhorred of Earth and Heaven, a pagan brotherhood!


s: The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed,


s: But life, though falling like our grain,


s: Are those which Heaven itself has wrought,


s: Light, Truth, and Love; your battle-ground


s: Through present cloud and gathering storm,


s: And down again through wind-stirred trees


s: Once more the truant's brown-locked head


s: With its hoarse murmur, "Blood for Blood!"


s: Seen hideous through the long, damp hair,--


s: From heaving breast and stiffened tongue,


s: Tightening the death-rope's strangling clasp.


s: And timely checked the words which sprung


s: With dunnest smoke-clouds curtained o'er,


s: With that deep voice which from the skies


s: And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere,


s: The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake.


s: The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's plain,


s: Calls from the westering slope of life's autumnal lea.


s: As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood!


s: So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee.


s: And the rough ore must find its honors in its use.


s: The unsung beauty hid life's common things below.


s: Where the strong working hand makes strong the


s: The burden of old crime, or mark of primal shame.


s: Since He, whose name we breathe with awe,


s: In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law.


s: And bless the while the bright-eyed girl


s: Free hands and hearts are still your pride,


s: And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit,


s: And England's priestcraft shakes to hear


s: Noiseless creeping, while we're sleeping,


s: Down the wild March flood shall bear them


s: Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them


s: Where, through clouds, are glimpses given


s: Strike, then, comrades! Trade is waiting


s: Ships, whose traffic links these highlands,


s: Hark! roars the bellows, blast on blast,


s: THROUGH heat and cold, and shower and sun,


s: From hillsides where, through spongy moss,


s: Through dust-clouds rising thick and dun,


s: Or, thronging close, from roadside rill,


s: No tottering hide-bound ghosts are there,


s: We've sought them where, in warmest nooks,


s: Or, tracking green the lowland's drouth,


s: When children throng the glowing hearth,


s: While in the fire-light strong and clear


s: IT was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain


s: Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;


s: The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay


s: With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow-flowers of May.


s: Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued,


s: On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.


s: And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night,


s: He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light;


s: Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill;


s: And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.


s: And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky,


s: From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks;


s: But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks.


s: The summer grains were harvested; the stubble-fields lay dry,


s: Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn crop stood.


s: Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold,


s: And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold.


s: There wrought the busy harvesters; and many a creaking wain


s: Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain;


s: Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last,


s: And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in brightness passed.


s: Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone,


s: And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!


s: As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away,


s: And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay;


s: From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name,


s: Their milking and their home-tasks done, the  merry huskers came.


s: Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow,


s: Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below;


s: The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before,


s: Half hidden, in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart,


s: Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart;


s: While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade,


s: Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair,


s: Through vales of grass and mends of flowers


s: All through the long, bright days of June


s: That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;"


s: Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke,


s: Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red,


s: Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope,


s: Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed,


s: Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,


s: That, where the share is deepest driven,


s: These wait their doom, from that great law


s: Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear,


s: STILL in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain


s: Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain;


s: Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through,


s: When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread,


s: At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fed


s: The yawning trenches with her noble dead;


s: Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls


s: The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls,


s: And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's side,


s: The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride;


s: Still in that vale where Himalaya's snow


s: Melts round the cornfields and the vines below,


s: The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball,


s: Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered wall;


s: On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain,


s: And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again.


s: "What folly, then," the faithless critic cries,


s: With sneering lip, and wise world-knowing eyes,


s: "While fort to fort, and post to post, repeat


s: The ceaseless challenge of the war-drum's beat,


s: And round the green earth, to the church-bell's chime,


s: The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time,


s: To dream of peace amidst a world in arms,


s: Of swords to ploughshares changed by Scriptural charms,


s: Of nations, drunken with the wine of blood,


s: Staggering to take the Pledge of Brotherhood,


s: Like tipplers answering Father Matthew's call;


s: The sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap Gaul,


s: The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with life,


s: The Yankee swaggering with his bowie-knife,


s: The Russ, from banquets with the vulture shared,


s: The blood still dripping from his amber beard,


s: Quitting their mad Berserker dance to hear


s: The dull, meek droning of a drab-coat seer;


s: Leaving the sport of Presidents and Kings,


s: Where men for dice each titled gambler flings,


s: To meet alternate on the Seine and Thames,


s: For tea and gossip, like old country dames


s: No! let the cravens plead the weakling's cant,


s: Let Cobden cipher, and let Vincent rant,


s: Let Sturge preach peace to democratic throngs,


s: And Burritt, stammering through his hundred tongues,


s: Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons o'er,


s: Timed to the pauses of the battery's roar;


s: Spike guns with pointed Scripture-texts, and hope


s: Still shall the glory and the pomp of War


s: Along their train the shouting millions draw;


s: His cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave;


s: Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song,


s: Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong;


s: Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned divine,


s: O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine,


s: To plumed and sworded auditors, shall prove


s: Their trade accordant with the Law of Love;


s: And Church for State, and State for Church, shall fight,


s: And both agree, that "Might alone is Right!"


s: Despite of sneers like these, O faithful few,


s: Who dare to hold God's word and witness true,


s: Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time,


s: And o'er the present wilderness of crime


s: Sees the calm future, with its robes of green,


s: Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft streams between,--


s: Still keep the path which duty bids ye tread,


s: Though worldly wisdom shake the cautious head;


s: No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere,


s: Without the greeting of the skeptic's sneer;


s: Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall,


s: Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the strife shall cease,


s: Like Morven's harpers, sing your song of peace;


s: As in old fable rang the Thracian's lyre,


s: Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal fire,


s: Till the fierce din to pleasing murmurs fell,


s: And love subdued the maddened heart of hell.


s: Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue,


s: Which the glad angels of the Advent sung,


s: Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour's birth,


s: Through the mad discord send that calming word


s: Which wind and wave on wild Genesareth heard,


s: Lift in Christ's name his Cross against the Sword!


s: Not vain the vision which the prophets saw,


s: Skirting with green the fiery waste of war,


s: Through the hot sand-gleam, looming soft and calm


s: On the sky's rim, the fountain-shading palm.


s: Still lives for Earth, which fiends so long have trod,


s: The great hope resting on the truth of God,--


s: Evil shall cease and Violence pass away,


s: And the tired world breathe free through a long


s: Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair,


s: Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creep


s: And through its grates the stripes and stars


s: The reader of the biography of William Allen, the philanthropic


s: No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest


s: No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest,


s: Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts


s: Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts,


s: Where the long shadows of the fir and pine


s: And the deep heart of many a Norland mine


s: Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands,


s: Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray


s: And beauty smiles, new risen from the spray,


s: Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds;


s: Lifts her tall minarets over burial-grounds


s: From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome,


s: And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's home


s: They paused not by the ruins of old time,


s: Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountains


s: But unto prisons, where men lay in chains,


s: To kings and courts forgetful of the pains


s: Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good,


s: Or pleading, as Christ's freemen only could,


s: Yet dream not, hence, the beautiful and old


s: Who in the school of Christ had learned to hold


s: Not less to them the breath of vineyards blown


s: Not less for them the Alps in sunset shone,


s: And fairest forms and sweetest harmonies


s: And sunset mountains wear in light above


s: Sure stands the promise,--ever to the meek


s: Nor lose they Earth who, single-hearted, seek


s: "WELL speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!


s: If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart,


s: Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past,


s: By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind


s: To all the beauty, power, and truth behind.


s: Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by


s: The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms,


s: Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon their tombs


s: God's witnesses; the voices of His will,


s: Heard in the slow march of the centuries still


s: Such were the men at whose rebuking frown,


s: Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went down;


s: Such from the terrors of the guilty drew


s: The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due."


s: In Heaven's sweet peace!) forbade, of old, the sale


s: Of men as slaves, and from the sacred pale


s: Hurled the Northumbrian buyers of the poor.


s: To ransom souls from bonds and evil fate


s: St. Ambrose melted down the sacred plate,--


s: Image of saint, the chalice, and the pix,


s: Crosses of gold, and silver candlesticks.


s: "Man is worth more than temples!" he replied


s: And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare,


s: And coining from the Abbey's golden hoard


s: The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer


s: Or threat of those whose fierce zeal for the Lord


s: Stifled their love of man,--"An earthen dish


s: More than your Lord, and grudge His dying poor


s: What your own pride and not His need requires?


s: Souls, than these shining gauds, He values more


s: Mercy, not sacrifice, His heart desires!"


s: In your dark ages, since ye fell asleep,


s: Much has been done for truth and human-kind;


s: Shadows are scattered wherein ye groped blind;


s: Man claims his birthright, freer pulses leap


s: Through peoples driven in your day like sheep;


s: Yet, like your own, our age's sphere of light,


s: Though widening still, is walled around by night;


s: With slow, reluctant eye, the Church has read,


s: Skeptic at heart, the lessons of its Head;


s: Counting, too oft, its living members less


s: Than the wall's garnish and the pulpit's dress;


s: World-moving zeal, with power to bless and feed


s: Life's fainting pilgrims, to their utter need,


s: Instead of bread, holds out the stone of creed;


s: Sect builds and worships where its wealth and


s: Careless that in the shadow of its walls


s: We need, methinks, the prophet-hero still,


s: Saints true of life, and martyrs strong of will,


s: To tread the land, even now, as Xavier trod


s: The streets of Goa, barefoot, with his bell,


s: And startling tyrants with the fear of hell


s: Soft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless well;


s: We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old


s: Rome's fresh young life has bled in vain;


s: Her death-groans answered to thy prayer;


s: The mother's shriek, thou mayst not hear


s: Nor heed those blood-stains on the wall,


s: Rome, frowning o'er her new-made graves,


s: Stand where Rome's blood was freest shed,


s: Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and call


s: Meek sufferance of the Heavens doth fail;


s: If, roused thereby, the world shall tread


s: Rough, bleak, and hard, our little State


s: And wintry hills, the school-house stands,


s: Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health;


s: While near her school the church-spire stands;


s: While near her church-spire stands the school.


s: I HAVE been thinking of the victims bound


s: And sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain,


s: Where hope is not, and innocence in vain


s: Appeals against the torture and the chain!


s: Unfortunates! whose crime it was to share


s: Our common love of freedom, and to dare,


s: In its behalf, Rome's harlot triple-crowned,


s: And her base pander, the most hateful thing


s: O God most merciful! Father just and kind


s: Whom man hath bound let thy right hand unbind.


s: Their ills lie hidden, let the sufferers find


s: Strong consolations; leave them not to doubt


s: The hope which all thy attributes inspire,


s: That not in vain the martyr's robe of fire


s: Is worn, nor the sad prisoner's fretting chain;


s: Since all who suffer for thy truth send forth,


s: Unquenchable sparks, thy own baptismal rain


s: Let this great hope be with them, as they lie


s: Shut from the light, the greenness, and the sky;


s: From the cool waters and the pleasant breeze,


s: The smell of flowers, and shade of summer trees;


s: Bound with the felon lepers, whom disease


s: And sins abhorred make loathsome; let them share


s: Pellico's faith, Foresti's strength to bear


s: Years of unutterable torment, stern and still,


s: As the chained Titan victor through his will!


s: Comfort them with thy future; let them see


s: For that, with all good things, is hid with Thee,


s: And, perfect in thy thought, awaits its time to be.


s: I, who have spoken for freedom at the cost


s: Of some weak friendships, or some paltry prize


s: Of name or place, and more than I have lost


s: Have gained in wider reach of sympathies,


s: And free communion with the good and wise;


s: That the strong pulse of health no more is mine;


s: To other hands the gleaning of the field;


s: A tired on-looker through the day's decline.


s: For blest beyond deserving still, and knowing


s: That kindly Providence its care is showing


s: Scarcely I dare for more or less to pray.


s: Melts on its sunset hills; and, far away,


s: For me the Ocean lifts its solemn psalm,


s: To me the pine-woods whisper; and for me


s: Yon river, winding through its vales of calm,


s: By greenest banks, with asters purple-starred,


s: And gentian bloom and golden-rod made gay,


s: Flows down in silent gladness to the sea,


s: Nor lack I friends, long-tried and near and dear,


s: Whose love is round me like this atmosphere,


s: Warm, soft, and golden. For such gifts to me


s: Of pain and ill that human life must bear;


s: Save me from selfish pining; let my heart,


s: In their great sorrows, let me live alway


s: In love which is of Thee, and which indeed Thou art!


s: Peace, in the dungeon-vaults and graves!


s: Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must press


s: There came a change--the cloud rolled off,


s: IT chanced that while the pious troops of France


s: Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached,


s: What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands


s: (The Hun and Aaron meet for such a Moses),


s: Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious Rome


s: That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed.


s: Of the bight Orient; and beheld the lame,


s: The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master's feet,


s: And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all,


s: Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise


s: From heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song,


s: He heard the blessed angels sing of peace,


s: Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord.


s: Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face


s: Hardened and darkened by fierce summer suns


s: And hot winds of the desert, closer drew


s: His fisher's haick, and girded up his loins,


s: And the sweet song of angels passed away,


s: The priest, and the swart fisher by his side,


s: The blaze of burning villas rose and fell,


s: Roared from the trenches; and, within the walls,


s: Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain,


s: Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell,


s: And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound,


s: Half wail and half defiance. As they passed


s: Flowed ankle-high about them, and dead men


s: Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles,--


s: From which at times, quivered a living hand,


s: And white lips moved and moaned. A father tore


s: In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept


s: Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid


s: Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell.


s: Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seen


s: The blessed Master and His works of love;


s: Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels sing


s: Above this open hell? Thou God's high-priest!


s: In the dear Master's name, and for the love


s: Of His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist,


s: Wide as the difference between death and life,


s: The hate of man and the great love of God!


s: Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream.


s: "What means he?" cried the Bourbon, "Nothing more


s: Than that your majesty hath all too well


s: Catered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth,


s: The Holy Father's supper troubleth him,"


s: Quenched by the heedless million's feet?


s: The fires that scourge the plains below,


s: I listened, through the cloud and night,


s: Transmits their joys and griefs to thee.


s: Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.


s: Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend;


s: "Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run,


s: Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies?


s: "Faith shares the future's promise; Love's


s: "Thy nature, which, through fire and flood,


s: "Strivest thou in darkness?--Foes without


s: Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt


s: BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand,


s: From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand,


s: "Lo, God is great!" the simple Moslem says.


s: Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase


s: And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells,


s: Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells,


s: And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes;


s: O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks


s: Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call


s: But in the stillness of the noonday, fall


s: No longer through the Red Sea, as of old,


s: Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled,


s: "God bless her," said the coast-guard,--


s: Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.


s: Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms.


s: The tall, sallow guardsmen their horsetails have spread,


s: Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red;


s: And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff,


s: And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff;


s: Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth,


s: Each a lord of the church and a prince of the earth.


s: What's this squeak of the fife, and this batter of drum


s: Lo! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia come;


s: The militant angels, whose sabres drive home


s: To the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and abhorred,


s: The good Father's missives, and "Thus saith the Lord!"


s: And lend to his logic the point of the sword!


s: O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn!


s: O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame!


s: Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves,


s: And his tender compassion of prisons and graves!


s: There they stand, the hired stabbers, the blood-stains yet fresh,


s: Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack


s: How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack;


s: But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords,


s: And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words!


s: Off with hats, down with knees, shout your vivas like mad!


s: Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad,


s: From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the quick,


s: Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick,


s: Who the role of the priest and the soldier unites,


s: And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights!


s: We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome;


s: With whose advent we dreamed the new era began


s: When the priest should be human, the monk be a man?


s: Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl,


s: When freedom we trust to the crosier and cowl!


s: Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hangman-faced Swiss--


s: (A blessing for him surely can't go amiss)--


s: Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss.


s: Short shrift will suffice him,--he's blest beyond doubt;


s: But there 's blood on his hands which would scarcely wash out,


s: Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout!


s: Make way for the next! Here's another sweet son


s: What's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done?


s: He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid!)


s: And the mothers? Don't name them! these humors of war


s: They who keep him in service must pardon him for.


s: Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat,


s: With the heart of a wolf, and the stealth of a cat


s: (As if Judas and Herod together were rolled),


s: Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and gold,


s: Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence,


s: And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence!


s: Who doubts Antonelli? Have miracles ceased


s: When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest?


s: When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board,


s: The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword,


s: When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head,


s: And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead!


s: There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed way


s: That they did when they rang for Bartholomew's day.


s: Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys,


s: Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise.


s: Te Deum laudamus! All round without stint


s: The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't!


s: And now for the blessing! Of little account,


s: You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount.


s: Its giver was landless, His raiment was poor,


s: No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home,


s: No Swiss guards!  We order things better at Rome.


s: So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak;


s: Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak;


s: Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again,


s: With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain;


s: Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban;


s: For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!


s: Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones,


s: Though with the earthquake and the storm.


s: And sow its ghastly fields with flowers!


s: WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth


s: And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth


s: From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves


s: Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves


s: No fettered feet thy shaded margins press;


s: Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness,


s: And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth


s: Once more, "Let there be light!"--Son of the South,


s: Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt


s: The moated wall and battle-ship may fail,


s: Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail


s: Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace,


s: Who frees a people makes his statue's place


s: Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar


s: Who, with the pencil of the Northern star,


s: From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm


s: And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet,


s: The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still,


s: Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will


s: The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long,


s: But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong


s: Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first


s: What strange, glad voice is that which calls


s: "PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more


s: Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar,


s: O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped


s: And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped


s: With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow


s: Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe


s: From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sons


s: Of desolate women in their far-off homes,


s: Waiting to hear the step that never comes!


s: O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.


s: War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!


s: In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold,


s: And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit


s: Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look,


s: Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook.


s: "O son of peace!" the giant cried, "thy fate


s: Is sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate."


s: The unarmed Buddha looking, with no trace


s: Of fear or anger, in the monster's face,


s: In pity said: "Poor fiend, even thee I love."


s: Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sank


s: To hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrank


s: And where the thunder of its rage was heard,


s: Circling above him sweetly sang the bird


s: "Hate hath no harm for love," so ran the song;


s: "And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!"


s: NOT without envy Wealth at times must look


s: On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook


s: And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough


s: Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam;


s: Make service noble, and the earth redeem


s: Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made.


s: Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain


s: And evil counsels proffer, they maintain


s: Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage


s: No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain


s: Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain,


s: And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields


s: Labor its just demand; and well for Ease


s: No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields


s: The interests of the rich man and the poor


s: And, when scant wage or labor fail to give


s: Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live,


s: Need has its rights, necessity its claim.


s: Test well the charity suffering long and kind.


s: The home-pressed question of the age can find


s: No answer in the catch-words of the blind


s: Leaders of blind. Solution there is none


s: Save in the Golden Rule of Christ alone.


s: Free press and rostrum, church and school,


s: Whose hands, unstained with blood, maintained


s: Earth's farthest mountain-tops shall burn


s: Our prayers, our hopes, our service free;


s: massacre, these lines will be remembered:--


s: He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota,


s: "Toussaint!--thou most unhappy man of men


s: Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough


s: Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den;


s: Wilt thou find patience?--Yet, die not, do thou


s: Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow;


s: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,


s: Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind


s: Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,--


s: There's not a breathing of the common wind


s: That will forget thee; thou hast great allies.


s: And love, and man's unconquerable mind."


s: Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."


s: 'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile


s: With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down


s: On broad green field and white-walled town;


s: Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam,


s: Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom,--


s: Hark to that cry! long, loud, and shrill,


s: It told of hate, full, deep, and strong,


s: Trod, fierce and free, the brute he made;


s: For bloodied arms were round her thrown,


s: And dark cheeks pressed against her own!


s: Now, when oppression's heart is bleeding;


s: That curse which, through long years of crime,


s: Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood,--


s: Yes, dark-souled chieftain! if the light


s: Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven,


s: The white man stood, prepared and still,


s: The horn winds through their caverned hill.


s: Our brethren from their graves have spoken,


s: The yoke is spurned, the chain is broken;


s: Through all the vales red blood is flowing


s: Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn


s: The white man's veins shall pour a flood;


s: As, headlong, through the cracking cane,


s: Howled through the dark, like sounds from hell.


s: Which still hath spurned the base control


s: Built I' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark."


s: individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they


s: While fiercely on that lone ship's track


s: Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!


s: Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air


s: Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh!


s: What! mothers from their children riven!


s: Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong


s: What! shall we send, with lavish breath,


s: By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall,


s: Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain?


s: "Go, loose your fettered slaves at home,


s: The Christian's scorn, the heathen's mirth,


s: Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth,


s: And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer,


s: And clustered vine, and blossomed grain,


s: SHE sings by her wheel at that low cottage-door,


s: Which the long evening shadow is stretching before,


s: With a music as sweet as the music which seems


s: Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams!


s: How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,


s: Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky!


s: And lightly and freely her dark tresses play


s: O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they!


s: Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-door,


s: The haughty and rich to the humble and poor?


s: 'T is the great Southern planter, the master who waves


s: His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.


s: "Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin,


s: Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin;


s: Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel,


s: Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel!


s: "But thou art too lovely and precious a gem


s: To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them;


s: For shame, Ellen, shame, cast thy bondage aside,


s: And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.


s: "Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong,


s: But where flowers are blossoming all the year long,


s: Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home,


s: And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom!


s: "Oh, come to my home, where my servants shall all


s: Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call;


s: They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe,


s: And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law."


s: "Oh, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls--


s: Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls,


s: With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel,


s: And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel!


s: "Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold


s: Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou halt sold;


s: Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear


s: The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!


s: "And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours,


s: And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy' flowers;


s: But dearer the blast round our mountains which raves,


s: Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves!


s: With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel;


s: Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be


s: In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!"


s: HAVE ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen,


s: Through cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men?


s: The lords of our land to this hunting have gone,


s: As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn;


s: Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip,


s: And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip!


s: All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match,


s: Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch.


s: So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen,


s: Through cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men!


s: Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride


s: In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride!


s: The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind,


s: Just screening the politic statesman behind;


s: The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer,


s: The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there.


s: And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid,


s: For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid


s: Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on the rein,


s: How blithely she rides to the hunting of men!


s: Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see,


s: In this "land of the brave and this home of the free."


s: Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to Maine,


s: All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein;


s: Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin


s: Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin!


s: Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay


s: Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey?


s: Will their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when


s: All roughly they ride to the hunting of men?


s: Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint,


s: Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the saint.


s: The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still,


s: Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill.


s: Haste, alms for our hunters! the hunted once more


s: Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore


s: What right have they here in the home of the white,


s: Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right?


s: Ho! alms for the hunters! or never again


s: Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men!


s: Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay,


s: When their pride and their glory are melting away?


s: The parson has turned; for, on charge of his own,


s: The politic statesman looks back with a sigh,


s: There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye.


s: Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail,


s: And the head of his steed take the place of the tail.


s: Oh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then,


s: For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men?


s: Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel,


s: The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow,


s: Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought


s: Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?


s: Shall Honor bleed?--shall Truth succumb?


s: Where Freedom weeps her children's fall;


s: By Griswold's stained and shattered wall;


s: For truth, and right, and suffering man,


s: What! shall we guard our neighbor still,


s: Which should have filled the world with flame?


s: Who minister at thine altar, God of Right!


s: Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay


s: Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor?


s: The homeless and the outcast, fettering down


s: Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!


s: Just God and holy! is that church, which lends


s: Of those high words of truth which search and burn


s: And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord


s: That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,


s: Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,


s: Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite?


s: Shall not the living God of all the earth,


s: To all who plunder from the immortal mind


s: To those whose hire is with the price of blood;


s: Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go,


s: Shall perish; and their very names shall be


s: Vile before all the people, in the light


s: When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love


s: And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known


s: Written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions in the House of


s: MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit


s: Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone?


s: Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us,


s: Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low,


s: That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us


s: Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging,


s: In God's name, let us speak while there is time!


s: Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging,


s: What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors


s: Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter,


s: For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us,


s: Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters,


s: Here the false jurist human rights deny,


s: And in the church, their proud and skilled abettors


s: Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible,


s: To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood?


s: And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel


s: Shall our New England stand erect no longer,


s: But stoop in chains upon her downward way,


s: Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger


s: Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains;


s: From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie;


s: From her blue rivers and her welling fountains,


s: From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean


s: Gnaws with his surges; from the fisher's skiff,


s: With white sail swaying to the billows' motion


s: From the free fireside of her untought farmer;


s: From her free laborer at his loom and wheel;


s: From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the hammer,


s: From each and all, if God hath not forsaken


s: Our land, and left us to an evil choice,


s: Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken


s: Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it


s: And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it


s: Oh, let that voice go forth! The bondman sighing


s: By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane,


s: Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying,


s: Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing


s: And unto God devout thanksgiving raising


s: Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy,


s: For the deliverance of a groaning earth,


s: For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly,


s: Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter


s: With all they left ye perilled and at stake?


s: Prayer-strenthened for the trial, come together,


s: And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father,


s: Our tears are shed, our sighs are given;


s: With feebler strength and hearts less lowly,


s: From scourge and chain the hunted slave;


s: Even where the fires of Hate were burning,


s: Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee.


s: Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee;


s: And, through the storm which round her swept,


s: Their strife is past, their triumph won;


s: THANK God for the token! one lip is still free,


s: One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee!


s: Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm,


s: Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm;


s: When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God,


s: Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood;


s: When the recreant North has forgotten her trust,


s: And the lip of her honor is low in the dust,--


s: Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken!


s: Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken!


s: O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown!


s: Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone!


s: To the land of the South, of the charter and chain,


s: Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain;


s: Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips


s: Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips!


s: Where "chivalric" honor means really no more


s: Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor!


s: Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high,


s: And the words which he utters, are--Worship, or die!


s: Right onward, oh, speed it! Wherever the blood


s: Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God;


s: Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining;


s: Wherever the lash of the driver is twining;


s: Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart,


s: Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart;


s: In silence and darkness, the God-given mind;


s: There, God speed it onward! its truth will be felt,


s: The bonds shall be loosened, the iron shall melt.


s: And oh, will the land where the free soul of Penn


s: Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen;


s: Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went forth


s: To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of Earth;


s: Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first


s: From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst;


s: Where first for the wronged and the weak of their kind,


s: The Christian and statesman their efforts combined;


s: Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain?


s: Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain?


s: No, Ritner! her "Friends" at thy warning shall stand


s: Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band;


s: Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time,


s: Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime;


s: Turning back front the cavil of creeds, to unite


s: Once again for the poor in defence of the Right;


s: Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong,


s: Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along;


s: Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain,


s: And counting each trial for Truth as their gain!


s: And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true,


s: Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due;


s: Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine,


s: On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine,--


s: The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to brave


s: The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave;


s: Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South


s: One brow for the brand, for the padlock one mouth?


s: They cater to tyrants? They rivet the chain,


s: No, never! one voice, like the sound in the cloud,


s: When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud,


s: Wherever the foot of the freeman hath pressed


s: From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the West,


s: On the South-going breezes shall deepen and grow


s: Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble below!


s: Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at stake,


s: Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from each height,


s: alienation and division," and called attention to the dangers now


s: Was it thus with those, your predecessors,


s: Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes


s: Your pastoral rights and powers from harm,


s: Think ye, can words alone preserve them?


s: And sword of temporal power to serve them.


s: Oh, glorious days, when Church and State


s: Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church


s: And priest and bailiff joined in search,


s: They bored the tongue with red-hot steel,


s: And flayed the backs of "female preachers."


s: And Salem's streets could tell their story,


s: And signs in earth and heaven are showing


s: On kindred, tongue, and people breaking,


s: Whose slumbering millions, at the sight,


s: Which God's right arm of power hath riven;


s: Whose lips are wet at Freedom's fountains,


s: With malice vex, with slander wound them,


s: And tried and manly hearts surround them.


s: With wisdom and with strength from Heaven,


s: Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer.


s: Written for the celebration of the third anniversary of British