The Indian from his lodge of bark,
The gray bear from his den,
Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark,
Glared on the mountain men.
Still upward turned, with anxious strain
Their leader's sleepless eye,
Where splinters of the mountain chain
Stood black against the sky.
The night waned slow: at last, a glow,
A gleam of sudden fire,
Shot up behind the walls of snow,
And tipped each icy spire.
"Up men!" he cried, "yon rocky cone, To-day, please God, we'll pass,
And look from Winter's frozen throne
On Summer's flowers and grass!"
They set their faces to the blast,
They trod th' eternal snow,
And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last
The promised land below.
Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed
By many an icy horn;
Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed,
And green with vines and corn.
They left the Winter at their backs
To flap his baffled wing,
And downward, with the cataracts,
Leaped to the lap of Spring.
Strong leader of that mountain band
Another task remains,
To break from Slavery's desert land
A path to Freedom's plains.
The winds are wild, the way is drear,
Yet, flashing through the night,
Lo! icy ridge and rocky spear
Blaze out in morning light!
Rise up, FREMONT ! and go before;
The Hour must have its Man;
Put on the hunting-shirt once more,
And lead in Freedom's van !
THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.25
ACROSS the frozen marshes
The winds of Autumn blow,
And the fen-lands of the Wetter
Are white with early snow.
But where the low, gray headlands,
Look o'er the Baltic brine,
A bark is sailing in the track
Of England's battle-line.
No wares hath she to barter
For Bothnia's fish and grain;
She saileth not for pleasure,
She saileth not for gain.
But, still by isle or mainland,
She drops her anchor down,
Where'er the British cannon
Rained fire on tower and town.
Outspake the ancient Amtman,
At the gate of Helsingfors:
"Why comes this ship a-spying
In the track of England's wars?"
“God bless her,” said the coast-guard,
"God bless the ship, I say.
The holy angels trim the sails
That speed her on her way!
"Where'er she drops her anchor,
The peasant's heart is glad;
Where'er she spreads her parting sail,
The peasant's heart is sad.
"Each wasted town and hamlet
She visits to restore;
To roof the shattered cabin,
And feed the starving poor.
"The sunken boats of fishers,
The foraged beeves and grain,
The spoil of flake and storehouse,
The good ship brings again.
"And so to Finland's sorrow
The sweet amend is made,
As if the healing hand of Christ
Upon her wounds were laid!”
Then said the gray old Amtman,
"The will of God be done!
The battle lost by England's hate,
By England's love is won!
"We braved the iron tempest
That thundered on our shore;
But when did kindness fail to find
The key to Finland's door?
"No more from Aland's ramparts
Shall warning signal come,
Nor startled Sweaborg hear again
The roll of midnight drum.
'Beside our fierce Black Eagle
The Dove of Peace shall rest;
And in the mouths of cannon
The sea-bird make her nest.
For Finland, looking seaward,
No coming foe shall scan;
And the holy bells of Abo
Shall ring, 'Good-will to man!'
"Then row thy boat, oh, fisher !
In peace on lake and bay ;
And thou, young maiden, dance again
Around the poles of May!
"Sit down, old men, together,
Old wives, in quiet spin;
Henceforth the Anglo-Saxon
Is the brother of the Finn !”
WBITTEN FOR THE ESSEX CO. AGRICULTURAL FAIR.
ONE morning of the first sad Fall,
Poor Adam and his bride
Sat in the shade of Eden's wall-
But on the outer side.
She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit
For the chaste garb of old;
He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit
For Eden's drupes of gold.
Behind them, smiling in the morn,
Their forfeit garden lay,
Before them, wild with rock and thor,
The desert stretched away.
They heard the air above them fanned,
A light step on the sward,
And lo! they saw before them stand
The angel of the Lord!
"Arise," he said, "why look behind,
When hope is all before,
And patient hand and willing mind,
Your loss may yet restore
"I leave with you a spell whose power Can make the desert glad,
And call around you fruit and flower
As fair as Eden had.
"I clothe your hands with power to lift
The curse from off your soil;
Your very doom shall seem a gift,
Your loss a gain through Toil.
“Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees,
To labor as to play."
White glimmering over Eden's trees
The angel passed away.
The pilgrims of the world went forth
Obedient to the word,
And found where'er they tilled the earth
A garden of the Lord!
The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit
And blushed with plum and pear; And seeded grass and trodden root Grew sweet beneath their care.
We share our primal parents' fate,
And in our turn and day,
Look back on Eden's sworded gate
As sad and lost as they.
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