TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 353 Along green hillsides, sown with shot | Stretched over those dusky foreheads and shell, Through vales once choked with war. The low reveille of their battle-drum Disturbs no morning prayer; His one-armed blessing. And he said: "Who hears can never With deeper peace in summer noons What shall I tell the children their hum Fills all the drowsy air. Up North about you?" Then ran round a whisper, a murmur, Some answer devising; 66 Massa, And Samson's riddle is our own to- And a little boy stood up: Tell 'em we're rising! O black boy of Atlanta! But half was spoken: The slave's chain and the master's Alike are broken. The one curse of the races Held both in tether: A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife They are rising, — all are rising, The old-time athlete drew! HOWARD AT ATLANTA. RIGHT in the track where Sherman Up from the cellar's burrow, He listened and heard the children Transformed he saw them passing Put on the immortal. No more with the beasts of burden, No more with stone and clod, But crowned with glory and honor In the image of God! There was the human chattel Its manhood taking; There, in each dark, brown statue, A soul was waking! The man of many battles, With tears his eyelids pressing, THE sweet spring day is glad with music, But through it sounds a sadder strain; The worthiest of our narrowing circle Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. O woman greatly loved! I join thee In tender memories of our friend; With thee across the awful spaces The greeting of a soul I send! What cheer hath he? How is it with him? Where lingers he this weary while? Over what pleasant fields of Heaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile? Does he not know our feet are treading The earth hard down on Slavery's grave? That, in our crowning exultations, We miss the charm his presence gave ? Why on this spring air comes no whis- | Back to the night from whence she per From him to tell us all is well? I feel the unutterable longing, The finger of God's silence lies; O friend! no proof beyond this yearning, This outreach of our hearts, we need; God will not mock the hope He giveth, No love He prompts shall vainly plead. Then let us stretch our hands in dark came, To unimagined grief or shame! Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin! Some misery inarticulate, Pass on! The type of all thou art, Sad witness to the common heart! Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads Our want perchance hath greater needs? Yet they who make their loss the gain Of others shall not ask in vain, | And Heaven bends low to hear the prayer Of love from lips of self-despair: In vain remorse and fear and hate He prayeth best who leaves unguessed Or heads are white, thou need'st not know. Enough to note by many a sign And torn by thorn and thicket, "Shrill Anabaptists, shorn of ears; "Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Mon- Of stripes and bondage braggarts, Pale Churchmen, with singed rubrics snatched From Puritanic fagots. "And last, not least, the Quakers came, With tongues still sore from burning, "Good friends," he says, "you reap a The Bay State's dust from off their field "I hear again the snuffled tones, "Each zealot thrust before my eyes feet Before my threshold spurning; "A motley host, the Lord's débris, Tough as their breeches leather: "If, when the hangman at their heels Came, rope in hand to catch them, I took the hunted outcasts in, I never sent to fetch them. "I fed, but spared them not a whit; But stronger meat of doctrine. "I proved the prophets false, I pricked The bubble of perfection, "Scourged at one cart-tail, each de- And clapped upon their inner light nied The snuffers of election. And, looking backward on my times, I kept each sectary's dish apart, "Where now the blending signs of sect "A common coat now serves for both, The hat's no more a fixture; That holy life is more than rite, And spirit more than letter; That they who differ pole-wide serve Perchance the common Master, And other sheep He hath than they Who graze one narrow pasture! For truth's worst foe is he who claims To act as God's avenger, And which was wet and which was And deems, beyond his sentry-beat, dry, Who knows in such a mixture? "Well! He who fashioned Peter's dream To bless them all is able; And bird and beast and creeping thing Make clean upon His table! The crystal walls in danger! Who sets for heresy his traps Of verbal quirk and quibble, And weeds the garden of the Lord With Satan's borrowed dibble. To-day our hearts like organ keys One Master's touch are feeling; I walked by my own light; but when The branches of a common Vine The ways of faith divided, Was I to force unwilling feet To tread the path that I did? "I touched the garment-hem of truth, Have only leaves of healing. Co-workers, yet from varied fields, Forgive, dear saint, the playful tone, Still echo in the hearts of men The words that thou hast spoken; No forge of hell can weld again The fetters thou hast broken. The pilgrim needs a pass no more "THE LAURELS." AT THE TWENTIETH AND LAST ANNI VERSARY. FROM these wild rocks I look to-day O'er leagues of dancing waves, and see The far, low coast-line stretch away To where our river meets the sea. The light wind blowing off the land Is burdened with old voices; through |