His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard,
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long, dishevelled locks of snow.

No grateful fire before him glows,

And yet the winter's breath is chill;
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent, save ever and anon,

A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip;
O sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate!

Just God! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison bed,
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair,
Gleam on him, fierce and red;
And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creep
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson with murder, touches him!

What has the gray-haired prisoner done?
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so; his crime 's a fouler one;

GOD MADE THE OLD MAN POOR!
For this he shares a felon's cell,-
The fittest earthly type of hell!
For this, the boon for which he poured
His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost,-
His blood-gained liberty is lost!

And so, for such a place of rest,

Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rain On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga's plain?

Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars;
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument upreared to thee,-
Piled granite and a prison cell,—
The land repays thy service well!

Go, ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out;

Shout Freedom!" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout;
Let boastful eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;

Still let the poet's strain be heard,

With glory for each second word,

And everything with breath agree
To praise our glorious liberty!

But when the patron cannon jars

That prison's cold and gloomy wall,

And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind, and fall,-
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb,
What is your carnival to him?

Down with the LAW that binds him thus !
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of God and human kind!
Open the prison's living tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code

To the free sun and air of God;

No longer dare as crime to brand

The chastening of the Almighty's hand.

The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of stone,
And mountain moss, a pillow for his head';
And He, who wandered with the peasant Jew,
And broke with publicans the bread of shame,
And drank, with blessings in his Father's
name,

The water which Samaria's outcast drew,
Hath now his temples upon every shore,

Altar and shrine and priest,-and incense dim Evermore rising, with low prayer and hymn, From lips which press the temple's marble floor, Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread Cross He

bore.

II.

Yet as of old, when, meekly "doing good,"
He fed a blind and selfish multitude,
And even the poor companions of his lot
With their dim earthly vision knew him not,
How ill are his high teachings understood!
Where He hath spoken Liberty, the priest

At his own altar binds the chain anew;
Where He hath bidden to Life's equal feast,

The starving many wait upon the few;
Where He hath spoken Peace, his name hath been
The loudest war cry of contending men;
Priests, pale with vigils, in his name have blessed
The unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest,
Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine,
And crossed its blazon with the holy sign;
Yea, in his name who bade the erring live,
And daily taught his lesson,-to forgive!-
Twisted the cord and edged the murderous steel;
And, with his words of mercy on their lips,
Hung gloating o'er the pincer's burning grips,
And the grim horror of the straining wheel;
Fed the slow flame which gnawed the victim's
limb,

Who saw before his searing eyeballs swim
The image of their Christ in cruel zeal,
Through the black torment-smoke, held mocking-
Ty to him!

Thank God! that I have lived to see the time
When the great truth begins at last to find
An utterance from the deep heart of mankind,
Earnest and clear, that ALL REVENGE IS CRIME!
That man is holier than a creed, -that all

Restraint upon him must consult his good,
Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall,
And Love look in upon his solitude.
The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught
Through long, dark centuries its way hath wrought
Into the common mind and popular thought;
And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore
The humble fishers listened with hushed oar,
Have found an echo in the general heart,
And of the public faith become a living part.

V.

Who shall arrest this tendency?-Bring back
The cells of Venice and the bigot's rack?
Harden the softening human heart again
To cold indifference to a brother's pain?
Ye most unhappy men!-who, turned away
From the mild sunshine of the Gospel day,

Grope in the shadows of Man's twilight time,
What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest ye brood,
O'er those foul altars streaming with warm blood,
Permitted in another age and olime ?
Why cite that law with which the bigot Jew
Rebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he knew
No evil in the Just One?-Wherefore turn
To the dark cruel past?-Can ye not learn
From the pure Teacher's life, show mildly free
Is the great Gospel of Humanity?
The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no more
Mexitli's altars soak with human gore,
No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke

ye

Through the green arches of the Druid's oak;
And of milder faith, with your high claim
Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest name,
Will ye become the Druids of our time!
Set up your scaffold-altars in our land,
And, consecrators of Law's darkest crime,
Urge to its loathsome work the hangman's hand?
Beware,-lest human nature, roused at last,
From its peeled shoulder your encumbrance cast,
And, sick to loathing of your cry for blood,
Rank ye with those who led their victims round
The Celt's red altar and the Indian's mound,
Abhorred of Earth and Heaven,-a pagan
brotherhood!

An angel in home's vine-hung door,
He saw his sister smile once more;
Once more the truant's brown-locked head
Upon his mother's knees was laid,
And sweetly lulled to slumber there,
With evening's holy hymn and prayer!

He woke.

II.

At once on heart and brain The present Terror rushed again,Clanked on his limbs the felon's chain!

He woke, to hear the church-tower tell

Time's footfall on the conscious bell,
And, shuddering, feel that clanging din
His life's LAST HOUR had ushered in;
To see within his prison-yard,
Through the small window, iron barred,
The gallows shadow rising dim
Between the sunrise heaven and him,-
A horror in God's blessed air,—

A blackness in his morning light,-
Like some foul devil-altar there

Built up by demon hands at night.
And, maddened by that evil sight,
Dark, horrible, confused, and strange,
A chaos of wild, weltering change,
All power of check and guidance gone,
Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on.
In vain he strove to breathe a prayer,

In vain he turned the Holy Book,
He only heard the gallows-stair
Creak as the wind its timbers shook.
No dream for him of sin forgiven,

While still that baleful spectre stood,
With its hoarse murmur," Blood for Blood!”
Between him and the pitying Heaven!

III.

Low on his dungeon floor he knelt,

And smote his breast, and on his chain, Whose iron clasp he always felt,

His hot tears fell like rain; And near him, with the cold, calm look And tone of one whose formal part, Unwarmed, unsoftened of the heart, Is measured out by rule and book, With placid lip and tranquil blood, The hangman's ghostly ally stood, Blessing with solemn text and word Lending the sacred Gospel's awe The gallows-drop and strangling cord; And sanction to the crime of Law.

IV.

THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.

I.

FAR from his close and noisome cell,
By grassy lane and sunny stream,
Blown clover field and strawberry dell,
And green and meadow freshness, fell
The footsteps of his dream.
Again from careless feet the dew

Of summer's misty morn he shook;
Again with merry heart he threw

His light line in the rippling brook. Back crowded all his school-day joys,He urged the ball and quoit again, And heard the shout of laughing boys Come ringing down the walnut glen. Again he felt the western breeze,

With scent of flowers and crisping hay; And down again through wind-stirred trees He saw the quivering sunlight play.

He saw the victim's tortured brow,-
The sweat of anguish starting there,-

The record of a nameless woe

In the dim eye's imploring stare,

Seen hideous through the long, damp hair,—
Fingers of ghastly skin and bone
Working and writhing on the stone!-
And heard, by mortal terror wrung
From heaving breast and stiffened tongue,

The choking sob and low hoarse prayer;
As o'er his half-crazed fancy came
A vision of the eternal flame,-
Its smoking cloud of agonies, -
Its demon worm that never dies,-
The everlasting rise and fall
Of fire-waves round the infernal wall;
While high above that dark red flood,
Black, giant-like, the gallows stood;
Two busy fiends attending there :
One with cold mocking rite and prayer,
The other with impatient grasp,

Tightening the death-rope's strangling clasp.

V.

The unfelt rite at length was done,-
The prayer unheard at length was said,-
An hour had passed :-the noonday sun
Smote on the features of the dead!
And he who stood the doomed beside,
Calm gauger of the swelling tide
Of mortal agony and fear,
Heeding with curious eye and ear
Whate'er revealed the keen excess
Of man's extremest wretchedness:
And who in that dark anguish saw
An earnest of the victim's fate,
The vengeful terrors of God's law,

The kindlings of Eternal hate,-
The first drops of that fiery rain
Which beats the dark red realm of pain,
Did he uplift his earnest cries

Against the crime of Law, which gave
His brother to that fearful grave,
Whereon Hope's moonlight never lies,

And Faith's white blossoms never wave
To the soft breath of Memory's sighs;-
Which sent a spirit marred and stained,
By fiends of sin possessed, profaned,
In madness and in blindness stark,
Into the silent, unknown dark?
No,-from the wild and shrinking dread
With which he saw the victim led

Beneath the dark veil which divides
Ever the living from the dead,

And Nature's solemn secret hides, The man of prayer can only draw New reasons for his bloody law; New faith in staying Murder's hand By murder at that Law's command; New reverence for the gallows-rope, As human nature's latest hope; Last relic of the good old time, When Power found license for its crime, And held a writhing world in check By that fell cord about its neck; Stifled Sedition's rising shout, Choked the young breath of Freedom out, And timely checked the words which sprung From Heresy's forbidden tongue; While in its noose of terror bound, The Church its cherished union found, Conforming, on the Moslem plan, The motley-colored mind of man, Not by the Koran and the Sword, But by the Bible and the Cord!

VI.

O Thou! at whose rebuke the grave
Back to warm life its sleeper gave,
Beneath whose sad and tearful glance
The cold and changed countenance
Broke the still horror of its trance,
And, waking, saw with joy above,
A brother's face of tenderest love;
Thou, unto whom the blind and lame,
The sorrowing and the sin-sick came,
And from thy very garment's hem
Drew life and healing unto them,
The burden of thy holy faith
Was love and life, not hate and death,
Man's demon ministers of pain,

The fiends of his revenge were sent
From thy pure Gospel's element
To their dark home again.

Thy name is Love! What, then, is he,
Who in that name the gallows rears,
An awful altar built to thee,

With sacrifice of blood and tears? O, once again thy healing lay

On the blind eyes which knew thee not,

And let the light of thy pure day

Melt in upon his darkened thought. Soften his hard, cold heart, and show The power which in forbearance lies, And let him feel that mercy now

Is better than old sacrifice!

VII.

As on the White Sea's charmed shore,
The Parsee sees his holy hill
With dunnest smoke-clouds curtained o'er,
Yet knows beneath them, evermore,
The low, pale fire is quivering still;
So, underneath its clouds of sin,
The heart of man retaineth yet
Gleams of its holy origin;

And half-quenched stars that never set, Dim colors of its faded bow,

And early beauty, linger there,
And o'er its wasted desert blow
Faint breathings of its morning air,
O, never yet upon the scroll
Of the sin-stained, but priceless soul,
Hath Heaven inscribed "DESPAIR!"
Cast not the clouded gem away,
Quench not the dim but living ray,-

My brother man, Beware!

With that deep voice which from the skies
Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice,
God's angel cries, FORBEAR!

RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

O MOTHER EARTH! upon thy lap
Thy weary ones receiving,
And o'er them, silent as a dream,
Thy grassy mantle weaving,
Fold softly in thy long embrace

That heart so worn and broken,
And cool its pulse of fire beneath
Thy shadows old and oaken.

Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulness

Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness.

There, where with living ear and eye
He heard Potomac's flowing,
And, through his tall ancestral trees,
Saw autumn's sunset glowing,
He sleeps, still looking to the west,
Beneath the dark wood shadow,
As if he still would see the sun

Sink down on wave and meadow.

Bard, Sage, and Tribune!-in himself All moods of mind contrasting,— The tenderest wail of human woe,

The scorn-like lightning blasting; The pathos which from rival eyes

Unwilling tears could summon,
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst
Of hatred scarcely human!

Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower,
From lips of life-long sadness;
Clear picturings of majestic thought
Upon a ground of madness;

And over all Romance and Song
A classic beauty throwing,

And laurelled Clio at his side
Her storied pages showing.

All parties feared him: each in turn
Beheld its schemes disjointed,
As right or left his fatal glance
And spectral finger pointed.
Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down
With trenchant wit unsparing,

And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand
The robe Pretence was wearing.

Too honest or too proud to feign
A love he never cherished,
Beyond Virginia's border line
His patriotism perished.

While others hailed in distant skies
Our eagle's dusky pinion,

He only saw the mountain bird

Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!

Still through each change of fortune strange,
Racked nerve, and brain all burning,
His loving faith in Mother-land
Knew never shade of turning;
By Britain's lakes, by Neva's wave
Whatever sky was o'er him,
He heard her rivers' rushing sound,
Her blue peaks rose before him.

He held his slaves, yet made withal
No false and vain pretences,
Nor paid a lying priest to seek
For Scriptural defences.

His harshest words of proud rebuke,
His bitterest taunt and scorning,
Fell fire-like on the Northern brow
That bent to him in fawning.

He held his slaves; yet kept the while
His reverence for the Human;

In the dark vassals of his will

He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God's outraged poor
His Roanoke valley entered;
No trader in the souls of men

Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man
Lay down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
His brother-man stood weeping,
His latest thought, his latest breath,
To Freedom's duty giving,

With failing tongue and trembling hand
The dying blest the living.

O, never bore his ancient State
A truer son or braver!
None trampling with a calmer scorn
On foreign hate or favor.

He knew her faults, yet never stooped
His proud and manly feeling
To poor excuses of the wrong
Or meanness of concealing.

But none beheld with clearer eye

The plague-spot o'er her spreading,

None heard more sure the steps of Doom
Along her future treading.
For her as for himself he spake,

When, his gaunt frame upbracing,
He traced with dying hand" REMORSE!"
And perished in the tracing.

As from the grave where Henry sleeps,
From Vernon's weeping willow,
And from the grassy pall which hides
The Sage of Monticello,

So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone
Of Randolph's lowly dwelling,
Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves
A warning voice is swelling!

And hark! from thy deserted fields
Are sadder warnings spoken,

From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons
Their household gods have broken.
The curse is on thee,-wolves for men,
And briers for corn-sheaves giving!
O, more than all thy dead renown
Were now one hero living!

DEMOCRACY.

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.--Matthew vii, 12.

BEARER of Freedom's holy light,

Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod, The foe of all which pains the sight, Or wounds the generous ear of God!

Beautiful yet thy temples rise,

Though there profaning gifts are thrown; And fires unkindled of the skies

Are glaring round thy altar-stone.

Still sacred, though thy name be breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed
Around the haughty brows of Pride.

O, ideal of my boyhood's time!

The faith in which my father stood, Even when the sons of Lust and Crime Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood!

Still to those courts my footsteps turn,

For through the mists which darken there,
I see the flame of Freedom burn,—
The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!

The generous feeling, pure and warm,
Which owns the rights of all divine,-
The pitying heart,-the helping arm,-
The prompt self-sacrifice,- -are thine.

Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,
How fade the lines of caste and birth!
How equal in their suffering lie
The groaning multitudes of earth!

Still to a stricken brother true,
Whatever clime hath nurtured him;
As stooped to heal the wounded Jew
The worshipper of Gerizim.

By misery unrepelled, unawed

By pomp or power, thou seest a MAN
In prince or peasant,-slave or lord,-
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.

Through all disguise, form, place, or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.

83

Not from the shallow babbling fount

Of vain philosophy thou art; He who of old on Syria's mount

In holy words which cannot die,

In thoughts which angels leaned to know, Proclaimed thy message from on high,Thy mission to a world of woe.

That voice's echo hath not died!
From the blue lake of Galilee,
And Tabor's lonely mountain-side,

It calls a struggling world to thee.

Thy name and watchword o'er this land
I hear in every breeze that stirs,
And round a thousand altars stand
Thy banded party worshippers.

Not to these altars of a day,

At party's call, my gift I bring; But on thy olden shrine I lay

A freeman's dearest offering:

The voiceless utterance of his will,

His pledge to Freedom and to Truth, That manhood's heart remembers still The homage of his generous youth. Election Day, 1843.

TO RONGE.

STRIKE home, strong-hearted man! Down to the

root

Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.
Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then
Put nerve into thy task. Let other men
Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit
The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal.
Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows
Fall heavy as the Suabina's iron hand,
On crown or crosier, which shall interpose
Between thee and the weal of Fatherland.
Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all,
Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall
Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk
Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk.
Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear
The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear
Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light
Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night.
Be faithful to both worlds; nor think to feed
Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed.
Servant of Him whose mission high and holy
Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the lowly,
Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere,
Distaut and dim beyond the blue sky's span;
Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here,-
The New Jerusalem comes down to man!
Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him,
When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb
The rusted chain of ages, help to bind

His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of the mind!

CHALKLEY HALL. 39

How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze
To him who flies

From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,
Till far behind him like a hideous dream
The close dark city lies!

Of the world's madness let me gather in
My better thoughts once more.

O, once again revive, while on my ear
The cry of Gain

And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away,
Ye blessed memories of my early day
Like sere grass wet with rain!-

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air
Old feelings waken;

Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,
O, let me feel that my good angel still
Hath not his trust forsaken.

And well do time and place befit my mood:
Beneath the arms

Of this embracing wood, a good man made
His home, like Abraham resting in the shade
Of Mamre's lonely palms.

Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years,
The virgin soil

Turned from the share he guided, and in rain And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain Which blessed his honest toil.

Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas, Weary and worn,

He came to meet his children and to bless The Giver of all good in thankfulness And praise for his return.

And here his neighbors gathered in to greet Their friend again,

Safe from the wave and the destroying gales, Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales, And vex the Carib main.

To hear the good man tell of simple truth, Sown in an hour

Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle, From the parched bosom of a barren soil, Raised up in life and power:

How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales,
A tendering love

Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven,
And words of fitness to his lips were given,

And strength as from above:

How the sad captive listened to the Word, Until his chain

Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt The healing balm of consolation melt Upon its life-long pain:

How the armed warrior sat him down to hear Of Peace and Truth,

And the proud ruler and his Creole dame, Jewelled and gorgeous in her beauty came, And fair and bright-eyed youth.

O, far away beneath New England's sky,
Even when a boy,

Following my plough by Merrimack's green shore,
His simple record I have pondered o'er
With deep and quiet joy.

And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,— Its woods around,

Its still stream winding on in light and shade, Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade,— To me is holy ground.