His battles with untoward fate, His blasted hopes and schemes, His longings for the pure and right, His visionary dreams?
Perhaps, from life's first early dawn ILL nestled by his side,
His teachings may have been in wrong, And sin his childhood's guide; No mother's voice, perhaps, for him Sent up an earnest prayer, No father at the mercy seat Asked his acceptance there;
No sister twined around his heart A soft and gentle spell,
Which made an atmosphere of love Wherever he might dwell; Virtue, perhaps, to him was known But as an empty name, And truth and justice but the guise Of cowardice and shame; Religion's winning, earnest tones May ne'er within his soul
Have spread their influence divine,
To purify the whole.
Then would ye swing your brother's form
High up in Heaven's free air,
And place the image of your God
A dying victim there?
With all his sins upon his head Before his destined hour;
Is your's the fiat of his days, Your's the avenging power?
Did not THAT EYE that saw his deed
Take note when it was done,
And read the thought that caused the act Ere yet it was begun?
And could He not with vengeance swift,
Have laid the culprit low,
If, in His wisdom, he had seen
It meet to deal the blow?
Think you His hand less strong than yours? Are you more just, more wise,
That ye with daring hands unrobe
The soul that never dies?
He whom your God in mercy spared No mercy meets in you,
And yet we pray-“ Forgive us, Lord As we all others do."
Perhaps no guilt your prisoner knows Although for crime arraigned,
And proofs may cluster thickly round By circumstance maintained; He may be innocent and stand Before his Maker's sight
A spotless one, more pure than you, Who THINK you act the right. And can ye give him life again, Or mete him right for wrong, If future time should prove the guilt May somewhere else belong? Then DARE ye swing your brother's form High up in Heaven's free air, When time may tell an innocent Has been suspended there?
Suppose he did it-and suppose Your priests around him placed, Teaching repentance may atone, And sinners may be graced- Suppose he does repent, and lies Washed clean before the throne, Becomes a saint, and purified, And Heaven he feels his own; With anxious zeal his spirit craves To fill life's little span
With calling all to turn, and see God's love to guilty man.
And who, than he once sunk in sin, Can more that love portray?
Who preach more truly-sinners turn, Crime may be washed away?
Then could ye hang that saint redeemed High up in Heaven's free air?
Is earth so full of righteous ones
That ye have some to spare?
And where your Father mercy showed, Can ye no mercy show?
Have ye ne'er sinned, that ye must thus Deal the avenging blow?
But if repentance should NOT come Before his hour of doom,
If unregenerate you should send
Your brother to the tomb,
Think you that ye will guiltless stand Before your Father's eye?
Did ye not MURDER when ye said Your prisoner should die? Or are your prison-houses full? Have ye no room for one? Is bread so scant ye cannot feed "Till life's short course is run?
Have ye not bolts and bars enough To hold the victim fast,
When burglars with their thousand wiles Are there securely cast?
And are ye sure, no changing fate May give to you HIS place? Are you so sanctified in good Ye cannot fall from grace? Can no temptation have the power To urge the hasty blow?
Have ye so conquered evil thoughts That sin no more ye know? Or may not circumstances charge Your innocence with crime? Full oft we know it has been thus From immemorial time.
Then, by the danger all must share That his may be our lot,
By all the bonds of human kind Aid to wipe out this blot!
Cease not from striving, till our law
Is clear from bloody stain,
And REFORMATION,-NOT REVENGE,— In principle sustain!
MAUD MULLER.-J. G. WHITTIER.
Maud Muller, on a summer's day, Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But, when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast- A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known. The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. "Thanks!" said the Judge," a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown, And her graceful-ankles bare and brown ;
And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away,
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me! That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. "And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door." The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay:
"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle, and song of birds, And health, and quiet, and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well, Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go : And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise. Oft when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead; And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door. But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall, In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein,
And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned;
And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
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