O'er the rabble's laughter; And, while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter.
Knowing this, that never yet Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow; After hands shall sow the seed, After hands from hill and mead Reap the harvests yellow.
Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, Must the moral pioneer
From the Future borrow;
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, And, on midnight's sky of rain, Paint the golden morrow!
Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil, "Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,
"From thy right hand, clothed with thunder, Shake the bolted fire!
"Love is lost, and Faith is dying; With the brute the man is sold; And the dropping blood of labor Hardens into gold.
"Here the dying wail of Famine, There the battle's groan of pain; And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon Reaping men like grain.
"Where is God, that we should fear Him" Thus the earth-born Titans ṣay; 'God! if thou art living, hear us! Thus the weak ones pray.
"Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding," Spake a solemn Voice within; "Weary of our Lord's forbearance, Art thou free from sin ?
"Fearless brow to Him uplifting, Canst thou for his thunders call, Knowing that to guilt's attraction Evermore they fall?
"Know'st thou not all germs of evil In thy heart await their time? Not thyself, but God's restraining, Stays their growth of crime.
"Could'st thou boast, oh child of weakness! O'er the sons of wrong and strife, Were their strong temptations planted In thy path of life?
"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing From one fountain, clear and free, But by widely varying channels Searching for the sea.
“Glideth one through greenest valleys, Kissing them with lips still sweet; One, mad roaring down the mountains, Stagnates at their feet.
"Is it choice whereby the Parsee Kneels before his mother's fire? In his black tent did the Tartar Choose his wandering sire?
"He alone, whose hand is bounding Human power and human will, Looking through each soul's surrounding. Knows its good or ill.
"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter
What the heart must feel.
"Earnest words must needs be spoken
When the warm heart bleeds or burns
With its scorn of wrong, or pity For the wronged, by turns.
"But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own.
"Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty To thy lips her trumpet set, But with harsher blasts shall mingle Wailings of regret."
Cease not, Voice of holy speaking, Teacher sent of God, be near, Whispering through the day's cool silence, Let my spirit hear!
So, when thoughts of evil doers Waken scorn or hatred move, Shall a mournful fellow-feeling Temper all with love.
IVRITTEN during the discussion in the Legislature of that State in the winter of 1846-7, of a bill for the abolition of Slavery.
THRICE welcome to thy sisters of the East, To the strong tillers of a rugged home, With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, And hardy feet o'er-swept by ocean's foam; And to the young nymphs of the golden West, Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairi bloom,
Trail in the sunset,-oh, redeemed and blest, To the warm welcome of thy sisters come! Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white bay Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from her plains, And the great lakes, where echo free alway
Moaned never shoreward with the clank of chains,
Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing spray, And all their waves keep grateful holiday. And, smiling on thee through her mountain rains, Vermont shall bless thee; and the Granite peaks, And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall wear Their snow-crowns brighter in the cold keen air; And Massachusetts, with her rugged cheeks O'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to thee, When, at thy bidding, the electric wire
Shall tremble northward with its words of fire: Glory and praise to God! another State is free !
PURE religion, and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this: To visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."-James i. 27.]
THE Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone.
Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mothers' offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.
Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky;
Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fast- ing,
And man's oblation was his fear and woe!
Then through great temples swelled the dismal
Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air:
As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor
Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please;
As if his ear could bend, with childish favor,
To the poor flattery of the organ keys!
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