give,

fears

Of milder natures and serener years. In the long strife with evil which began With the first lapse of new-created man, Wisely and well has Providence assigned To each his part, some forward, some behind; And they, too, serve who temper and restrain The o'erwarm heart that sets on fire the brain.

True to yourselves, feed Freedom's altarflame

With what you have; let others do the

same.

Spare timid doubters; set like flint your face

Against the self-sold knaves of gain and place:

Pity the weak; but with unsparing hand Cast out the traitors who infest the

land,

From bar, press, pulpit, cast them everywhere,

By dint of fasting, if you fail by prayer. And in their place bring men of antique mould,

Like the grave fathers of your Age of Gold,

Statesmen like those who sought the primal fount

Of righteous law, the Sermon on the Mount;

Lawyers who prize, like Quincy, (to our day

Still spared, Heaven bless him!) honor

more than pay,

And Christian jurists, starry-pure, like Jay;

Preachers like Woolman, or like them who bore

The faith of Wesley to our Western shore, And held no convert genuine till he broke Alike his servants' and the Devil's yoke; And priests like him who Newport's market trod,

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

So shall your power, with a wise prudence used,

Strong but forbearing, firm but not abused,

In kindly keeping with the good of all, The nobler maxims of the past recall,

Its widening circles to the South or North,

Where'er our banner flaunts beneath the stars

Its mimic splendors and its cloudlike bars,

There shall Free Labor's hardy children stand

The equal sovereigns of a slaveless land. And when at last the hunted bison tires, And dies o'ertaken by the squatter's fires;

And westward, wave on wave, the living flood

Breaks on the snow-line of majestic Hood;

And lonely Shasta listening hears the tread

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

And, gazing downward through his hoar-locks, sees

The tawny Asian climb his giant knees, The Eastern sea shall hush his waves to hear

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

And one long rolling fire of triumph

run

Between the sunrise and the sunset gun!"

183

his show, Themselves but shadows, into shadows go;

And, if no song of idlesse I have sung, Nor tints of beauty on the canvas flung,

If the harsh numbers grate on tender ears,

And the rough picture overwrought appears,

With deeper coloring, with a sterner blast,

Before my soul a voice and vision passed, Such as might Milton's jarring trump require,

Or glooms of Dante fringed with lurid fire.

O, not of choice, for themes of public wrong

I leave the green and pleasant paths of song,

The mild, sweet words which soften and adorn,

For griding taunt and bitter laugh of

scorn.

More dear to me some song of private worth,

vales

And low response of leaf and wave.

Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night
Make rival love, I leave ye soon,
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon

Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, And the young archer, Morn, shall break

His arrows on the mountain pines,

And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!

Farewell around this smiling bay Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom,

With lighter steps than mine, may stray In radiant summers yet to come.

But none shall more regretful leave

These waters and these hills than I : Or, distant, fonder dream how eve

Or dawn is painting wave and sky;

How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day;

Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy, Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,

Shall add, to life's abounding joy,

The charmed repose to suffering dear.

Still waits kind Nature to impart
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of pain.
Forever from the Hand that takes

One blessing from us others fall;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all!

O, watched by Silence and the Night,

And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,

Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
Be thou the mirror of God's love.

185

said:

"With God I dwell.

"Alone with Him in this great calm,
I live not by the outward sense;
My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
His providence."

The child gazed round him.
God live

Is

with

"Does

Here only?- where the desert's rim
green corn, at morn and eve,
We pray to Him.

"My brother tills beside the Nile
His little field beneath the leaves
My sisters sit and spin the while,
My mother weaves.

"And when the millet's ripe heads fall,
And all the bean-field hangs in pod,
My mother smiles, and says that all
Are gifts from God.

"And when to share our evening meal,

She calls the stranger at the door, She says God fills the hands that deal Food to the poor."

Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks

Glistened the flow of human tears; "Dear Lord!" he said, "thy angel speaks,

Thy servant hears."

Within his arms the child he took,
And thought of home and life with

men;

And all his pilgrim feet forsook
Returned again.

The palmy shadows cool and long,
The eyes that smiled through lavish
locks,

Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song, And bleat of flocks.

"O child!" he said, "thou teachest me
There is no place where God is not;
That love will make, where'er it be,
A holy spot."

He rose from off the desert sand,

And, leaning on his staff of thorn, Went, with the young child, hand-inhand, Like night with morn.

The deathless singer and the flowers
He sang of live together.

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns !
The moorland flower and peasant !
How, at their mention, memory turns
Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold
And purple of adorning,

And manhood's noonday shadows hold
The dews of boyhood's morning.

The dews that washed the dust and soil

From off the wings of pleasure,

The sky, that flecked the ground of toil

With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day,
The early harvest mowing,
The sky with sun and clouds at play,
And flowers with breezes blowing.