Such are the men who leave the pedler's cart,
While faring South, to learn the driver's art,
Or, in white neckcloth, soothe with pious aim
The graceful sorrows of some languid dame,
Who, from the wreck of her bereavement, saves
The double charm of widowhood and slaves!-
Pliant and apt, they lose no chance to show
To what base depths apostasy can go;
Outdo the natives in their readiness
To roast a negro, or to mob a press;
Poise a tarred schoolmate on the lyncher's rail,
Or make a bonfire of their birthplace mail!

"So some poor wretch, whose lips no longer bear

The sacred burden of his mother's prayer,
By fear impelled, or lust of gold enticed,
Turns to the Crescent for the Cross of Christ,
And, over-acting in superfluous zeal,
Crawls prostrate where the faithful only kneel,
Out-howls the Dervish, hugs his rags to court
The squalid Santon's sanctity of dirt;
And, when beneath the city gateway's span
Files slow and long the Meccan caravan,
And through its midst, pursued by Islam's pray-

Men whom yourselves with vote and purse sustain,
At posts of honor, influence, and gain;
The right of Slavery to your sons to teach,
And South-side Gospels in your pulpits
preach,

Transfix the Law to ancient freedom dear
On the sharp point of her subverted spear,
And imitate upon her cushion plump
The mad Missourian lynching from his stump;
Or, in your name, upon the Senate's floor
Yield up to Slavery all it asks, and more;
And, ere your dull eyes open to the cheat,
Sell your old homestead underneath your feet!
While such as these your loftiest outlooks hold,
While truth and conscience with your wares are
sold,

While grave-browed merchants band themselves to aid

An annual man-hunt for their Southern trade,
What moral power within your grasp remains
To stay the mischief on Nebraska's plains?—
High as the tides of generous impulse flow,
As far rolls back the selfish undertow;
And all your brave resolves, though aimed as true
As the horse-pistol Balmawhapple drew,
To Slavery's bastions lend as slight a shock
As the poor trooper's shot to Sterling rock!

"Yet, while the need of Freedom's cause de

mands

The earnest efforts of your hearts and hands,
Urged by all motives that can prompt the heart
To prayer and toil and manhood's manliest part;
Though to the soul's deep tocsin Nature joins
The warning whisper of her Orphic pines,
The north-wind's anger, and the south-wind's
sigh,

The midnight sword-dance of the northern sky,
And, to the ear that bends above the sod
Of the green grave-mounds in the Fields of God,
In low, deep murmurs of rebuke or cheer,
The land's dead fathers speak their hope or fear,

Yet let not Passion wrest from Reason's hand
The guiding rein and symbol of command.
Blame not the caution proffering to your zeal
A well-meant drag upon its hurrying wheel;
Nor chide the man whose honest doubt extends
To the means only, not the righteous ends;
Nor fail to weigh the scruples and the 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 altar-flame
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,
Her natural home-born right to Freedom give,
And leave her foe his robber-right,-to live.
Live, as the snake does in his noisome fen!
Live, as the wolf does in his bone-strewn den!
Live, clothed with cursing like a robe of flame,
The focal point of million-fingered shame!
Live, till the Southron, who, with all his faults,
Has manly instincts, in his pride revolts,
Dashes from off him, midst the glad world's
cheers,

The hideous nightmare of his dream of years, And lifts, self-prompted, with his own right hand,

The vile encumbrance from his glorious land!

"So, wheresoe'er our destiny sends forth 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!"
My task is done. The Showman and 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,
Some homely idyl of my native North,
Some summer pastoral of her inland vales
Or, grim and weird, her winter fireside tales
Haunted by ghosts of unreturning sails,-

135

Lost barks at parting hung from stem to helm
With prayers of love like dreams on Virgil's elm.
Nor private grief nor malice holds my pen;
I owe but kindness to my fellow-inen;
And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer
Their woes and weakness to our Father bear,
Wherever fruits of Christian love are found
In holy lives, to me is holy ground.
But the time passes. It were vain to crave
A late indulgence. What I had I gave.
Forget the poet, but his warning heed,

And shame his poor word with your nobler deed.

SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE.

I. NOON.

WHITE clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep,
Light mists, whose soft embraces keep
The sunshine on the hills asleep!

O isles of calm !-O dark, still wood!
And stiller skies that overbrood
Your rest with deeper quietude!

O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view
Beyond the purple and the blue,

To stiller sea and greener land,
And softer lights and airs more bland,
And skies,-the hollow of God's hand!

Transfused through you, O mountain friends!
With mine your solemn spirit blends,
And life no more hath separate ends.

I read each misty mountain sign,
I know the voice of wave and pine,
And I am yours, and ye are mine.

Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,
I lapse into the glad release
Of Nature's own exceeding peace.

O, welcome calm of heart and mind!
As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind
To leave a tenderer growth behind,

So fall the weary years away; A child again, my head I lay Upon the lap of this sweet day.

This western wind hath Lethean powers, Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, The lake is white with lotus-flowers!

Even Duty's voice is faint and low,
And slumberous Conscience, waking slow,
Forgets her blotted scroll to show.

The Shadow which pursues us all, Whose ever-nearing steps appall, Whose voice we hear behind us all,—

That Shadow blends with mountain gray, It speaks but what the light waves say,Death walks apart from Fear to-day!

Rocked on her breast, these pines and I Alike on Nature's love rely;

And equal seems to live or die.

Assured that He whose presence fills
With light the spaces of these hills
No evil to his creatures wills,

The simple faith remains, that He Will do, whatever that may be, The best alike for man and tree.

What mosses over one shall grow, What light and life the other know, Unanxious, leaving Him to show.

II. EVENING.

Yon mountain's side is black with night,
While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown,
The moon, slow-rounding into sight,

On the hushed inland sea looks down.

How start to light the clustering isles,
Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show
The shadows of their rocky piles,
And tree-tops in the wave below!

How far and strange the mountains seem,
Dim-looming through the pale, still light!
The vague, vast grouping of a dream,
They stretch into the solemn night.

Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale,
Hushed by that presence grand and grave,
Are silent, save the cricket's wail,
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;

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is:

The mercy-seat and cherubim,

And all the holy mysteries,

He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love, Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds, And wearies Heaven for naught above Our common needs.

Which brings to God's all-perfect will

That trust of his undoubting child Whereby all seeming good and ill Are reconciled.

And, seeking not for special signs Of favor, is content to fall Within the providence which shines And rains on all.

Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
At noontime o'er the sacred word.
Was it an angel or a fiend
Whose voice he heard?

It broke the desert's hush of awe,
A human utterance, sweet and mild;
And, looking up, the hermit saw
A little child."

A child, with wonder-widened eyes,

O'erawed and troubled by the sight Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, And anchorite.

"What dost thou here, poor man? No shade Of cool, green doums, nor grass, nor well, Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit 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. "Does God live
Here only ?-where the desert's rim

Is green with 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-in-hand,
Like night with morn.

They crossed the desert's burning line,
And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan,
The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine,
And voice of man.

Unquestioning, his childish guide
He followed as the small hand led
To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
Her distaff fed.

She rose, she clasped her truant boy,
She thanked the stranger with her eyes.
The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
And dumb surprise.

And lo!-with sudden warmth and light
A tender memory thrilled his frame;
New-born, the world-lost anchorite
A man became.

138

New light on home-seen Nature beamed,
New glory over Woman;
And daily life and duty seemed

No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth

Of fact and feeling better

Than all the dreams that held my youth
A still repining debtor :

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art,
The themes of sweet discoursing;
The tender idyls of the heart

In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl,
Of loving knight and lady,
When farmer boy and barefoot girl
Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things
The romance underlying;

The joys and griefs that plume the wings
Of Fancy skyward flying.

I saw the same blithe day return,
The same sweet fall of even,
That rose on wooded Craigie-burn,
And sank on crystal Devon.

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills
The sweetbrier and the clover;
With Ayr and Doon, my native rills,

Their wood-hymns chanting over.

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen,
I saw the Man uprising;
No longer common or unclean,

The child of God's baptizing!

With clearer eyes I saw the worth
Of life among the lowly;
The Bible at his Cotter's hearth

Had made my own more holy.

And if at times an evil strain,

To lawless love appealing,
Broke in upon the sweet refrain
Of pure and healthful feeling,

It died upon the eye and ear,
No inward answer gaining;
No heart had I to see or hear
The discord and the staining.

Let those who never erred forget

His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song !-I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings!

Lament who will the ribald line

Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones of beauty;

But think, while falls that shade between
The erring one and Heaven,
That he who loved like Magdalen,
Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render.

The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor!

But who his human heart has laid
To Nature's bosom nearer ?

Who sweetened toil like him, or paid
To love a tribute dearer?

Through all his tuneful art, how strong
The human feeling gushes!
The very moonlight of his song
Is warm with smiles and blushes!

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So" Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, But spare his Highland Mary!

WILLIAM FORSTER." 61

THE years are many since his hand
Was laid upon my head,
Too weak and young to understand
The serious words he said.

Yet often now the good man's look
Before me seems to swim,

As if some inward feeling took
The outward guise of him.

As if, in passion's heated war,
Or near temptation's charm,
Through him the low-voiced monitor
Forewarned me of the harm.

Stranger and pilgrim !—from that day
Of meeting, first and last,
Wherever Duty's pathway lay,

His reverent steps have passed.

The poor to feed, the lost to seek,
To proffer life to death,
Hope to the erring, -to the weak
The strength of his own faith.

To plead the captive's right; remove
The sting of hate from Law;
And soften in the fire of love
The hardened steel of War.

He walked the dark world, in the mild,
Still guidance of the Light;

In tearful tenderness a child,
A strong man in the right.

From what great perils, on his way,
He found, in prayer, release;
Through what abysmal shadows lay
His pathway unto peace,

God knoweth: we could only see
The tranquil strength he gained;
The bondage lost in liberty,

The fear in love unfeigned.

And I,-my youthful fancies grown
The habit of the man,
Whose field of life by angels sown
The wilding vines o'erran,-

Low bowed in silent gratitude,
My manhood's heart enjoys
That reverence for the pure and good
Which blessed the dreaming boy's.

Still shines the light of holy lives
Like star-beams over doubt;
Each sainted memory, Christlike, drives
Some dark possession out.

O friend! O brother! not in vain
Thy life so calm and true,
The silver dropping of the rain,
The fall of summer dew!