IX.

Since first I heard our North wind blow, Since first I saw Atlantic throw On our fierce rocks his thunderous snow, I loved thee, Freedom; as a boy The rattle of thy shield at Marathon Did with a Grecian joy Through all my pulses run; But I have learned to love thee now Without the helm upon thy gleaming brow, A maiden mild and undefiled Like her who bore the world's redeeming child; And surely never did thy altars glance With purer fires than now in France; While, in their bright white flashes, Wrong's shadow, backward cast, Waves cowering o'er the ashes Of the dead, blaspheming Past, O'er the shapes of fallen giants, His own unburied brood, Whose dead hands clench defiance At the overpowering Good: And down the happy future runs a flood Of prophesying light; It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood, Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud Of Brotherhood and Right.

A PARABLE.

Said Christ our Lord, "I will go and see How the men, my brethren, believe in me." He passed not again through the gate of birth, But made himself known to the children of earth.

Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings, "Behold, now, the Giver of all good things; Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state Him who alone is mighty and great."

With carpets of gold the ground they spread Wherever the Son of Man should tread, And in palace-chambers lofty and rare They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare.

Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him, And in church and palace, and judgment-hall, He saw his image high over all.

But still, wherever his steps they led, The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundation-stones, The son of Mary heard bitter groans.

And in church and palace, and judgment-hall, He marked great fissures that rent the wall, And opened wider and yet more wide As the living foundation heaved and sighed.

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

"With gates of silver and bars of gold, Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold: I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven, these eighteen hundred years."

"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built; Behold thine images, how they stand, Sovereign and sole, through all our land.

"Our task is hard,--with sword and flame To hold thy earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep."

Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from her faintly want and sin.

These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment-hem, For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, "The images ye have made of me!"

ODE

WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON.

My name is Water: I have sped Through strange, dark ways, untried before, By pure desire of friendship led, Cochituate's ambassador; He sends four royal gifts by me: Long life, health, peace, and purity.

I'm Ceres' cup-bearer; I pour, For flowers and fruits and all their kin, Her crystal vintage, from of yore Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, Flora's Falernian ripe, since God The wine-press of the deluge trod.

In that far isle whence, iron-willed, The New World's sires their bark unmoored, The fairies' acorn-cups I filled Upon the toadstool's silver board, And, 'neath Herne's oak, for Shakspeare's sight, Strewed moss and grass with diamonds bright.

No fairies in the Mayflower came, And, lightsome as I sparkle here, For Mother Bay-State, busy dame, I've toiled and drudged this many a year, Throbbed in her engines' iron veins, Twirled myriad spindles for her gains.

I, too, can weave; the warp I set Through which the sun his shuttle throws, And, bright as Noah saw it, yet For you the arching rainbow glows, A sight in Paradise denied To unfallen Adam and his bride.

When Winter held me in his grip, You seized and sent me o'er the wave, Ungrateful! in a prison-ship; But I forgive, not long a slave, For, soon as summer south-winds blew, Homeward I fled, disguised as dew.

For countless services I'm fit, Of use, of pleasure, and of gain, But lightly from all bonds I flit, Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain; From mill and wash-tub I escape, And take in heaven my proper shape.

So, free myself, to-day, elate I come from far o'er hill and mead, And here, Cochituate's envoy, wait To be your blithesome Ganymede, And brim your cups with nectar true That never will make slaves of you.

LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD BATTLE-GROUND.

The same good blood that now refills The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, The same whose vigor westward thrills, Bursting Nevada's silver chains, Poured here upon the April grass, Freckled with red the herbage new; On reeled the battle's trampling mass, Back to the ash the bluebird new.

Poured here in vain;--that sturdy blood Was meant to make the earth more green, But in a higher, gentler mood Than broke this April noon serene; Two graves are here; to mark the place, At head and foot, an unhewn stone, O'er which the herald lichens trace The blazon of Oblivion.

These men were brave enough, and true To the hired soldier's bull-dog creed; What brought them here they never knew, They fought as suits the English breed; They came three thousand miles, and died, To keep the Past upon its throne; Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, Their English mother made her moan.

The turf that covers them no thrill Sends up to fire the heart and brain; No stronger purpose nerves the will, No hope renews its youth again: From farm to farm the Concord glides, And trails my fancy with its flow; O'erhead the balanced henhawk slides, Twinned in the river's heaven below.

But go, whose Bay-State bosom stirs, Proud of thy birth and neighbor's right, Where sleep the heroic villagers Borne red and stiff from Concord fight; Thought Reuben, snatching down his gun, Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, What earthquake rifts would shoot and run World-wide from that short April fray?

What then? With heart and hand they wrought According to their village light; 'Twas for the Future that they fought, Their rustic faith in what was right. Upon earth's tragic stage they burst Unsummoned, in the humble sock; Theirs the fifth act; the curtain first Rose long ago on Charles's block.

Their graves have voices; if they threw Dice charged with fates beyond their ken, Yet to their instincts they were true, And had the genius to be men. Fine privilege of Freedom's host, Of even foot-soldiers for the Right!-- For centuries dead, ye are not lost, Your graves send courage forth, and might.

TO ----.

We, too, have autumns, when our leaves Drop loosely through the dampened air, When all our good seems bound in sheaves, And we stand reaped and bare.

Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow.

But each day brings less summer cheer, Crimps more our ineffectual spring, And something earlier every year Our singing birds take wing.

As less the olden glow abides, And less the chillier heart aspires, With drift-wood beached in past spring-tides We light our sullen fires.

By the pinched rushlight's starving beam We cower and strain our wasted sight, To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by seam, In the long arctic night.

It was not so--we once were young-- When Spring, to womanly Summer turning, Her dew-drops on each grass-blade strung, In the red sunrise burning.

We trusted then, aspired, believed That earth could be remade to-morrow;-- Ah, why be ever undeceived? Why give up faith for sorrow?

O thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving; Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory's in believing.

FREEDOM.

Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, As on an altar,--can it be that ye Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains? The people's heart is like a harp for years Hung where some petrifying torrent rains Its slow-incrusting spray: the stiffened chords Faint and more faint make answer to the tears That drip upon them: idle are all words; Only a silver plectrum wakes the tone Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening stone.

We are not free: Freedom doth not consist In musing with our faces toward the Past, While petty cares, and crawling interests, twist Their spider-threads about us, which at last Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind In formal narrowness heart, soul, and mind. Freedom is recreated year by year, In hearts wide open on the Godward side, In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, In minds that sway the future like a tide. No broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes; She chooses men for her august abodes, Building them fair and fronting to the dawn; Yet, when we seek her, we but find a few Light footprints, leading morn-ward through the dew; Before the day had risen, she was gone.

And we must follow: swiftly runs she on, And, if our steps should slacken in despair, Half turns her face, half smiles through golden hair, Forever yielding, never wholly won: That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace; Freedom gained yesterday is no more ours; Men gather but dry seeds of last year's flowers: Still there's a charm ungranted, still a grace, Still rosy Hope, the free, the unattained, Makes us Possession's languid hand let fall; 'Tis but a fragment of ourselves is gained,-- The Future brings us more, but never all.

And, as the finder of some unknown realm, Mounting a summit whence he thinks to see On either side of him the imprisoning sea, Beholds, above the clouds that overwhelm The valley-land, peak after snowy peak Stretch out of sight, each like a silver helm Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime and bleak, And what he thought an island finds to be A continent to him first oped,--so we Can from our height of Freedom look along A boundless future, ours if we be strong; Or if we shrink, better remount our ships And, fleeing God's express design, trace back The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track To Europe, entering her blood-red eclipse.

BIBLIOLATRES.

Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, And thinking the great God is thine alone, O rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook What gods the heathen carves in wood and stone, As if the Shepherd who from outer cold Leads all his shivering lambs to one sure fold Were careful for the fashion of his crook.

There is no broken reed so poor and base, No rush, the bending tilt of swamp-fly blue, But he therewith the ravening wolf can chase, And guide his flock to springs and pastures new; Through ways unlooked for, and through many lands, Far from the rich folds built with human hands, The gracious footprints of his love I trace.

And what art thou, own brother of the clod, That from his hand the crook wouldst snatch away And shake instead thy dry and sapless rod, To scare the sheep out of the wholesome day? Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted Jew, That with thy idol-volume's covers two Wouldst make a jail to coop the living God?

Thou hear'st not well the mountain organ-tones By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai caught, Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew brains Drew dry the springs of the All-knower's thought, Nor shall thy lips be touched with living fire, Who blow'st old altar-coals with sole desire To weld anew the spirit's broken chains.

God is not dumb, that he should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor; There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, Intent on manna still and mortal ends, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore.

Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it, Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit.

BEAVER BROOK.

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, And, minuting the long day's loss, The cedar's shadow, slow and still, Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, The aspen's leaves are scarce astir, Only the little mill sends up Its busy, never-ceasing burr.

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems The road along the mill-pond's brink, From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, My footstep scares the shy chewink.

Beneath a bony buttonwood The mill's red door lets forth the din; The whitened miller, dust-imbued, Flits past the square of dark within.

No mountain torrent's strength is here; Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller's will.

Swift slips Undine along the race Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.

The miller dreams not at what cost The quivering mill-stones hum and whirl, Nor how for every turn, are tost Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.

But Summer cleared my happier eyes With drops of some celestial juice, To see how Beauty underlies For evermore each form of Use.

And more: methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood, To turn the world's laborious wheels.

No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare Moves every day's machinery.

Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap to music and to light.

In that new childhood of the Earth Life of itself shall dance and play; Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight half-way.

APPLEDORE.

How looks Appledore in a storm? I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic, Butting against the maddened Atlantic, When surge after surge would heap enorme, Cliffs of Emerald topped with snow, That lifted and lifted and then let go A great white avalanche of thunder, A grinding, blinding, deafening ire Monadnock might have trembled under; And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below To where they are warmed with the central fire, You could feel its granite fibres racked, As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill Right at the breast of the swooping hill, And to rise again, snorting a cataract Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge, While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep, And the next vast breaker curled its edge, Gathering itself for a mighty leap.

North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers, You would never dream of in smooth weather, That toss and gore the sea for acres, Bellowing and gnashing and snarling together; Look northward, where Duck Island lies, And over its crown you will see arise, Against a background of slaty skies, A row of pillars still and white That glimmer and then are out of sight, As if the moon should suddenly kiss, While you crossed the gusty desert by night, The long colonnades of Persepolis, And then as sudden a darkness should follow To gulp the whole scene at single swallow, The city's ghost, the drear, brown waste, And the string of camels, clumsy-paced:-- Look southward for White Island light, The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide; There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight, Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, And surging bewilderment wild and wide, Where the breakers struggle left and right, Then a mile or more of rushing sea, And then the light-house slim and lone; And whenever the whole weight of ocean is thrown Full and fair on White Island head, A great mist-jotun you will see Lifting himself up silently High and huge o'er the light-house top, With hands of wavering spray outspread, Groping after the little tower, That seems to shrink, and shorten and cower, Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, And silently and fruitlessly He sinks again into the sea.

You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand, Awaken once more to the rush and roar And on the rock-point tighten your hand, As you turn and see a valley deep, That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all-- Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas Feeling their way to you more and more; If they once should clutch you high as the knees They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, Beyond all reach of hope or help;-- And such in a storm is Appledore.

DARA.

When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand Wilted by harem-heats, and all the land Was hovered over by those vulture ills That snuff decaying empire from afar, Then, with a nature balanced as a star, Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He, who had governed fleecy subjects well, Made his own village, by the self-same spell, Secure and peaceful as a guarded fold, Till, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees, Under his sway, to neighbor villages Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now, when it fortuned that a king more wise Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes, He sought on every side men brave and just, And having heard the mountain-shepherd's praise, How he rendered the mould of elder days, To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide, Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride Than in his crook before; but Envy finds More soil in cities than on mountains bare, And the frank sun of spirits clear and rare Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was whispered at the royal ear That, though wise Dara's province, year by year, Like a great sponge, drew wealth and plenty up, Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest, Some golden drops, more rich than all the rest, Went to the filling of his private cup.

For proof, they said that whereso'er he went A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent, Went guarded, and no other eye had seen What was therein, save only Dara's own, Yet, when 'twas opened, all his tent was known To glow and lighten with heapt jewels' sheen.

The king set forth for Dara's province straight, Where, as was fit, outside his city's gate The viceroy met him with a stately train; And there, with archers circled, close at hand, A camel with the chest was seen to stand, The king grew red, for thus the guilt was plain.

"Open me now," he cried, "yon treasure-chest!" 'Twas done, and only a worn shepherd's vest Was found within; some blushed and hung the head, Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof He stood, and "O, my lord, behold the proof That I was worthy of my trust!" he said.

"For ruling men, lo! all the charm I had; My soul, in those coarse vestments ever clad, Still to the unstained past kept true and leal, Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air, And Fortune's heaviest gifts serenely bear, Which bend men from the truth, and make them reel.

"To govern wisely I had shown small skill Were I not lord of simple Dara still; That sceptre kept, I cannot lose my way!" Strange dew in royal eyes grew round, and bright And thrilled the trembling lids; before 'twas night Two added provinces blest Dara's sway.

TO J. F. H.

Nine years have slipped like hour-glass sand From life's fast-emptying globe away, Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand, And lingered on the impoverished land, Watching the steamer down the bay.

I held the keepsake which you gave, Until the dim smoke-pennon curled O'er the vague rim 'tween sky and wave, And closed the distance like a grave, Leaving me to the outer world;

The old worn world of hurry and heat, The young, fresh world of thought and scope; While you, where silent surges fleet Toward far sky beaches still and sweet, Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope.

Come back our ancient walks to tread, Old haunts of lost or scattered friends, Amid the Muses' factories red, Where song, and smoke, and laughter sped The nights to proctor-hunted ends.

Our old familiars are not laid, Though snapped our wands and sunk our books, They beckon, not to be gainsaid, Where, round broad meads which mowers wade, Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;

Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow, From glow to gloom the hillside shifts Its lakes of rye that surge and flow, Its plumps of orchard-trees arow, Its snowy white-weed's summer drifts.

Or let us to Nantasket, there To wander idly as we list, Whether, on rocky hillocks bare, Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tear The trailing fringes of gray mist.

Or whether, under skies clear-blown, The heightening surfs with foamy din, Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown Against old Neptune's yellow zone, Curl slow, and plunge forever in.

For years thrice three, wise Horace said, A poem rare let silence bind; And love may ripen in the shade, Like ours, for nine long seasons laid In crypts and arches of the mind.

That right Falernian friendship old Will we, to grace our feast, call up, And freely pour the juice of gold, That keeps life's pulses warm and bold, Till Death shall break the empty cup.

MEMORIAL VERSES.

KOSSUTH.

A race of nobles may die out, A royal line may leave no heir; Wise Nature sets no guards about Her pewter plate and wooden ware.

But they fail not, the kinglier breed, Who starry diadems attain; To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed Heirs of the old heroic strain.

The zeal of Nature never cools, Nor is she thwarted of her ends; When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, Then she a saint and prophet spends.

Land of the Magyars! though it be The tyrant may relink his chain, Already thine the victory, As the just Future measures gain.

Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won The deathly travail's amplest worth; A nation's duty thou hast done, Giving a hero to our earth.

And he, let come what will of woe, Has saved the land he strove to save; No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow, Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave.

"I Kossuth am: O Future, thou That clear'st the just and blott'st the vile, O'er this small dust in reverence bow, Remembering, what I was erewhile.

"I was the chosen trump wherethrough Our God sent forth awakening breath; Came chains? Came death? The strain He blew Sounds on, outliving chains and death."

TO LAMARTINE.

1848.

I did not praise thee when the crowd, 'Witched with the moment's inspiration, Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration; I but looked upward with the rest, And, when they shouted Greatest, whispered Best.

They raised thee not, but rose to thee, Their fickle wreaths about thee flinging; So on some marble Phœbus the high sea Might leave his worthless sea-weed clinging, But pious hands, with reverent care, Make the pure limbs once more sublimely bare.

Now thou 'rt thy plain, grand self again, Thou art secure from panegyric,-- Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain, And actedst Freedom's noblest lyric: This side the Blessed Isles, no tree Grows green enough to make a wreath for thee.

Nor can blame cling to thee; the snow From swinish foot-prints takes no staining, But, leaving the gross soils of earth below, Its spirit mounts, the skies regaining, And unresenting falls again, To beautify the world with dews and rain.

The highest duty to mere man vouchsafed Was laid on thee,--out of wild chaos, When the roused popular ocean foamed and chafed, And vulture War from his Imaus Snuffed blood, to summon homely Peace, And show that only order is release.

To carve thy fullest thought, what though Time was not granted? Aye in history, Like that Dawn's face which baffled Angelo, Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, Thy great Design shall stand, and day Flood its blind front from Orients far away.

Who says thy day is o'er? Control, My heart, that bitter first emotion; While men shall reverence the steadfast soul, The heart in silent self-devotion Breaking, the mild, heroic mien, Thou'lt need no prop of marble, Lamartine.

If France reject thee, 'tis not thine, But her own, exile that she utters; Ideal France, the deathless, the divine, Will be where thy white pennon flutters, As once the nobler Athens went With Aristides into banishment.

No fitting metewand hath To-day For measuring spirits of thy stature,-- Only the Future can reach up to lay The laurel on that lofty nature,-- Bard, who with some diviner art Has touched the bard's true lyre, a nation's heart.

Swept by thy hand, the gladdened chords, Crashed now in discords fierce by others, Gave forth one note beyond all skill of words, And chimed together, We are brothers. O poem unsurpassed! it ran All round the world, unlocking man to man.

France is too poor to pay alone The service of that ample spirit; Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, If balanced with thy simple merit. They had to thee been rust and loss; Thy aim was higher,--thou hast climbed a Cross.

TO JOHN G. PALFREY.

There are who triumph in a losing cause, Who can put on defeat, as 't were a wreath Unwithering in the adverse popular breath, Safe from the blasting demagogue's applause; 'Tis they who stand for Freedom and God's laws.

And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell stood, Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed To trust the playful tiger's velvet paws: And if the second Charles brought in decay Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring Souls that had broadened 'neath a nobler day, To see a losel, marketable king Fearfully watering with his realm's best blood Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst had cracked and flamed, Scaring, through all their depths of courtier mud, Europe's crowned bloodsuckers,--how more ashamed Ought we to be, who see Corruption's flood Still rise o'er last year's mark, to mine away Our brazen idols' feet of treacherous clay!

O utter degradation! Freedom turned Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and betray To the old lecher's clutch a maiden prey, If so a loathsome pander's fee be earned! And we are silent,--we who daily tread A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' graves!-- Beckon no more, shades of the noble dead! Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of winds and waves! Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, hid Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, With cerements close, to wither in the cold Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid! Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet; We climb to them through years of sweat and pain; Without long struggle, none did e'er attain The downward look from Quiet's blissful seat: Though present loss may be the hero's part, Yet none can rob him of the victor heart Whereby the broad-realmed future is subdued, And Wrong, which now insults from triumph's car, Sending her vulture hope to raven far, Is made unwilling tributary of Good.

O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires! Is there none left of thy staunch Mayflower breed? No spark among the ashes of thy sires, Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed? Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, And writhe through slimy ways to place and power?-- How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower? O for one hour of that undaunted stock That went with Vane and Sydney to the block!

O for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff From the Lord's threshing-floor! Yet more than half The victory is attained, when one or two, Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, Beside thy sepulchre can abide the morn, Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew.

TO W. L. GARRISON.

"Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."--_Letter of H. G. Otis._

In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man; The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean;-- Yet there the freedom of a race began.

Help came but slowly; surely no man yet Put lever to the heavy world with less: What need of help? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus round which systems grow! Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born In the rude stable, in the manger nursed! What humble hands unbar those gates of morn Through which the splendors of the New Day burst!

What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell, Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown? Brave Luther answered Yes; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown.

Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled; No! said one man in Genoa, and that No Out of the dark created this New World.

Who is it will not dare himself to trust? Who is it hath not strength to stand alone? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward |MUST|? He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown.

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world; see the obedient sphere By bravery's simple gravitation drawn!

Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?

We stride the river daily at its spring, Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain! Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.

ON THE DEATH OF C. T. TORREY.

Woe worth the hour when it is crime To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, The glorious throbs that conquer time, Are traitors to our cruel laws!

He strove among God's suffering poor One gleam of brotherhood to send; The dungeon oped its hungry door To give the truth one martyr more, Then shut,--and here behold the end!

O Mother State! when this was done, No pitying throe thy bosom gave; Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud spun, And now thou givest to thy son The stranger's charity--a grave.

Must it be thus forever? No! The hand of God sows not in vain; Long sleeps the darkling seed below, The seasons come, and change, and go, And all the fields are deep with grain.

Although our brother lie asleep, Man's heart still struggles, still aspires; His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires.

When hours like this the senses' gush Have stilled, and left the spirit room, It hears amid the eternal hush The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, That brings the vengeance and the doom;--

Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends What rivets man to man apart,-- God doth not so bring round his ends, But waits the ripened time, and sends His mercy to the oppressor's heart.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING.

I do not come to weep above thy pall, And mourn the dying-out of noble powers; The poet's clearer eye should see, in all Earth's seeming woe, the seed of Heaven's flowers.

Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep Of everlasting Soul her strength abides, From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap, Through Nature's veins her strength, undying, tides.

Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er the wave; And love lives on and hath a power to bless, When they who loved are hidden in the grave.

The sculptured marble brags of death-strewn fields, And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood; But Alexander now to Plato yields, Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood.

I watch the circle of the eternal years, And read forever in the storied page One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears,-- One onward step of Truth from age to age.

The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain; The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates; Man's hope lies quenched;--and, lo! with steadfast gain Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross Make up the groaning record of the past; But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss, And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last.

No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; Thereby a law of Nature it became, And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth, When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; The better part of thee is with us still; Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, And only freer wrestles with the Ill.

Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die; Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly.

And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, And clothe the Right with lustre more divine.

Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, And strength, to perfect what it dreamed of here Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room For love and pity, and for helpful deeds; Else were our summons thither but a doom To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.

From off the starry mountain peak of song, Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time, An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong, A race revering its own soul sublime.

What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come, Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed.

Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning, too; Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue:

When that day comes, O, may this hand grow cold, Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right; O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,-- For us weep rather thou in calm divine.

1842.

TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD.

Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,-- What mournful words are these!

O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art!

His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain: Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door And call him home again?

Freedom needs all her poets: it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.

Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will That gracious natures leave their love behind To work for Freedom still.

Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms With their exulting spread.

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone, No lichen shall its lines efface, He needs these few and simple lines alone To mark his resting-place:--

"Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor."

SONNETS.