Home, name and life, for Freedom's sake
God mend his heart who cannot feel
The impulse of a holy zeal,
And sees not, with his sordid eyes,
The beauty of self-sacrifice!
Though in the sacred place he stands,
Uplifting consecrated hands,
Unworthy are his lips to tell
Of Jesus' martyr-miracle,
Or name aright that dread embrace
Of suffering for a fallen race !
"Jove means to settle
Astræa in her seat again,
And let down from his golden chain
An age of better metal."
O, POET rare and old!
Thy words are prophecies;
Forward the age of gold,
The new Saturnian lies.
The universal prayer
And hope are not in vain;
Rise, brothers! and prepare
The way for Saturn's reign.
Perish shall all which takes
From labor's board and can;
Perish shall all which makes
A spaniel of the man!
Free from its bonds the mind,
The body from the rod;
Broken all chains that bind
The image of our God.
Just men no longer pine
Behind their prison-bars;
Through the rent dungeon shine
The free sun and the stars.
Earth own, at last, untrod
By sect, or caste, or clan,
The fatherhood of God,
The brotherhood of man!
Fraud fail, craft perish, forth
The money-changers driven,
And God's will done on earth,
As now in heaven!
THROUGH thy clear spaces, Lord, of old,
Formless and void the dead earth rolled;
Deaf to thy heaven's sweet music, blind
To the great lights which o'er it shined;
No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,-
A dumb despair, a wandering death.
To that dark, weltering horror came
Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,—
A breath of life electrical,
Awakening and transforming all,
Till beat and thrilled in every part
The pulses of a living heart.
Then knew their bounds the land and sea;
Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree;
From flower to moth, from beast to man,
The quick creative impulse ran;
And earth, with life from thee renewed,
Was in thy holy eyesight good.
As lost and void, as dark and cold
And formless as that earth of old,—
A wandering waste of storm and night,
Midst spheres of song and realms of light,-
A blot upon thy holy sky,
Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I.
O thou who movest on the deep.
Of spirits, wake my own from sleep!
Its darkness melt, its coldness warm,
The lost restore, the ill transform,
That flower and fruit henceforth may be
Its grateful offering, worthy thee.
ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD DILLINGHAM, IN THE NASHVILLE
"THE cross, if rightly borne, shall be
No burden, but support to thee;"*
So, moved of old time for our sake,
The holy monk of Kempen spake.
Thou brave and true one! upon whom
Was laid the cross of martyrdom,
How didst thou, in thy generous youth,
Bear witness to this blessed truth!
Thy cross of suffering and of shame
A staff within thy hands became,
* Thomas à Kempis. Imit Christ.
In paths where faith alone could see
The Master's steps supporting thee.
Thine was the seed-time; God alone
Beholds the end of what is sown;
Beyond our vision, weak and dim,
The harvest-time is hid with Him.
Yet, unforgotten where it lies,
That seed of generous sacrifice,
Though seeming on the desert cast,
Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last.
DRY the tears for holy Eva,
With the blessed angels leave her;
Of the form so soft and fair
Give to earth the tender care.
For the golden locks of Eva
Let the sunny south-land give her
Flowery pillow of repose,
Orange-bloom and budding rose.
In the better home of Eva
Let the shining ones receive her,
With the welcome-voiced psalm,
Harp of gold and waving palm!
All is light and peace with Eva;
There the darkness cometh never;
Tears are wiped, and fetters fall,
And the Lord is all in all.
Weep no more for happy Eva,
Wrong and sin no more shall grieve her;
Care and pain and weariness
Lost in love so measureless.
Gentle Eva, loving Eva,
Child confessor, true believer,
Listener at the Master's knee,
"Suffer such to come to me."
O, for faith like thine, sweet Eva,
Lighting all the solemn river,
And the blessings of the poor
Wafting to the heavenly shore!
SEERESS of the misty Norland,
Daughter of the Vikings bold,
Welcome to the sunny Vineland,
Which thy fathers sought of old !
Soft as flow of Silja's waters,
When the moon of summer shines,
Strong as Winter from his mountains
Roaring through the sleeted pines.
Heart and ear, we long have listened
To thy saga, rune and song,
As a household joy and presence
We have known and loved thee long
By the mansion's marble mantel,
Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies Meet and mingle with our mirth.
And, o'er weary spirits keeping Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill,
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