Who scoffs at our birthright?—the words of the

seers,

And the songs of the bards in the twilight of years,

All the fore-gleams of wisdom in santon and sage, In prophet and priest, are our true heritage.

The Word which the reason of Plato discerned; The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-fire burned The soul of the world which the Stoic but guessed, In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed!

No honors of war to our worthies belong;

Their plain stem of life never flowered into song; But the fountains they opened still gush by the way,

And the world for their healing is better to-day.

He who lies where the minster's groined arches curve down

To the tomb-crowded transept of England's renown, The glorious essayist, by genius enthroned,

Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned,

Who through the world's pantheon walked in his pride,

Setting new statues up, thrusting old ones aside,
And in fiction the pencils of history dipped,
To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt,----

How vainly he labored to sully with blame
The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame !
Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind:
On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed!

For the sake of his true-hearted father before

him;

For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore

him;

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401

For the sake of his gifts, and the works that outlive

him,

And his brave words for freedom, we freely forgive

him!

There are those who take note that our numbers are small,

New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall; But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of his own, And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have

sown.

The last of the sect to his fathers may go,

Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show; But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years,

Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears.

Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone,

In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on, Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run, And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun.

Meanwhile shall we learn, in our case, to forget To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our debt?

Hide their words out of sight, like the garb that they

wore,

And for Barclay's Apology offer one more?

Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears,

And festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears ?

Talk of Woolman's unsoundness ?-count Penn heterodox?

And take Cotton Mather in place of George Fox ?—

Make our preachers war-chaplains?-quote Scrip

ture to take

The hunted slave back, for Onesimus' sake ?Go to burning church-candles, and chanting in choir,

And on the old meeting-house stick up a spire?

No! the old paths we'll keep until better are shown, Credit good where we find it, abroad or our own; And while "Lo here" and "Lo there" the multitude call,

Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all.

The good round about us we need not refuse,
Nor talk of our Zion as if we were Jews;

But why shirk the badge which our fathers have

worn,

Or beg the world's pardon for having been born?

We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer,
Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share.
Truth to us and to others is equal and one:

Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun?

Well know we our birthright may serve but to show

How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow; But we need not disparage the good which we hold: Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold!

Enough and too much of the sect and the name.
What matters our label, so truth be our aim?
The creed may be wrong, but the life may be true,
And hearts beat the same under drab coats of
blue.

So the man be a man, let him worship at will,
In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill.

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403

When she makes up her jewels, what cares the good

town

For the Baptist of WAYLAND, the Quaker of BROWN?

And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown,

When she counts up the worthies her annals have known,

Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect

To measure her love, and mete out her respect.

Three shades at this moment seem walking her

strand,

Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,

Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene
On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen.

One holy name bearing, no longer they need
Credentials of party, and pass-words of creed:
The new song they sing hath a threefold accord,
And they own one baptism, one faith, and one
Lord!

But the golden sands run out: occasions like these Glide swift into shadow, like sails on the seas: While we sport with the mosses and pebbles ashore, They lessen and fade, and we see them no more.

Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant thoughts

seem

Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme.

Forgive the light measure whose changes display The sunshine and rain of our brief April day.

There are moments in life when the lip and the eye Try the question of whether to smile or to cry;

And scenes and reunions that prompt like our own The tender in feeling, the playful in tone.

I, who never sat down with the boys and the girls At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,

By courtesy only permitted to lay

On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,

I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's part In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of heart,

On your play-ground of boyhood unbend the brow's

care,

And shift the old burdens our shoulders must bear.

Long live the good School! giving out year by year
Recruits to true manhood, and womanhood dear :
Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth,
The living epistles and proof of its worth!

In and out let the young life as steadily flow
As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go;
And its sons and its daughters in prairie and town
Remember its honor, and guard its renown.

Not vainly the gift of its founder was made;
Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laid :
The blessing of Him whom in secret they sought
Has owned the good work which the fathers have
wrought.

To Him be the glory forever!—We bear

To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the tare. What we lack in our work may He find in our will, And winnow in mercy our good from the ill!