They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be.

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's bloodrusted key.

TO W. L. GARRISON

90

"Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."Letter of H. G. Otis.

In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young

man;

The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean; —
Yet there the freedom of a race began.

Help came but slowly; surely no man yet
Put lever to the heavy world with less :
What need of help? He knew how types were set,
He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,

5

The compact nucleus, round which systems grow; 10 Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,

And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

6. Archimedes, a great philosopher of antiquity, used to say, "Only give me a place to stand on, and I will move the world with my lever."

O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed!
What humble hands unbar those gates of morn

15

Through which the splendors of the New Day burst!

What shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell,

Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown?

Brave Luther answered YES; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. 20

Whatever can be known of earth we know,

Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled;

No! said one man in Genoa, and that No
Out of the dark created this New World.

Who is it will not dare himself to trust ?

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone?

Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST?

He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown.

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here!
See one straightforward conscience put in pawn 30
To win a world; see the obedient sphere
By bravery's simple gravitation drawn!

Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old,
And by the Present's lips repeated still,

In our own single manhood to be bold,
Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?

335

We stride the river daily at its spring,

Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee, What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain!
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide
The din of battle and of slaughter rose;

He saw God stand upon the weaker side,
That sank in seeming loss before its foes:

Many there were who made great haste and sold
Unto the cunning enemy their swords,

He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold,
And, underneath their soft and flowery words,
Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went
And humbly joined him to the weaker part,
Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content
So he could be the nearer to God's heart,
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood

Through all the widespread veins of endless good.

10

POEMS HAVING A SPECIAL RELATION TO THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. GROUP B

"Indeed, there could scarcely have been a better nesting place for one who was all his life long to love the animation of nature and to portray in verse and prose its homely and friendly aspects rather than its large, solemn, and expansive scenes. From the upper windows of the house that tower of enchantment for many a child - he could see & long curve of the Charles, the wide marshes beyond the river, and the fields which lay between Elmwood and the village of Cambridge. Within the place itself were the rosebushes and asters, the heavy headed goat's-beard, the lilac bushes and syringas which bordered the path from the door to what his father, in New England phrase, called the avenue, and which later became formally Elmwood Avenue. And in the trees and bushes sang the birds that were to be his companions through life. Over the buttercups whistled the orioles; and bobolinks, catbirds, linnets, and robins were to teach him notes,

о о

The Aladdin's trap-door of the past to lift.

A spring morning which witnessed the sudden miracle of regeneration; an hour of summer, when he sat dappled with sunshine, in a cherry-tree; a day in autumn, when the falling leaves moved as an accompaniment to his thought; the creaking of the snow beneath his feet, when the familiar world was transformed as in a vision to a polar solitude:

Instant the candid chambers of my brain
Were painted with these sovran images;
And later visions seem but copies pale
From those unfading frescos of the past,
Which I, young savage, in my age of flint,
Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me
Parted from nature by the joy in her
That doubtfully revealed me to myself."
Scudder's James Russell Lowell

* See The Study of The Vision of Sir Launfal. D. 94.

BEAVER BROOK

HUSHED with broad sunlight lies the hill,
And, minuting the long day's loss,
The cedar's shadow, slow and still,
Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup,
The aspen's leaves are scarce astir ;
Only the little mill sends up
Its busy, never-ceasing burr.

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems
The road along the mill-pond's brink,
From 'neath the arching barberry-stems
My footstep scares the shy chewink.

Beneath a bony buttonwood

The mill's red door lets forth the din;

The whitened miller, dust-imbued,

18

Flits past the square of dark within.

No mountain torrent's strength is here;
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,

Heaps its small pitcher to the ear,

And gently waits the miller's will.

20

Swift slips Undine along the race

Unheard, and then, with flashing bound,
Floods the dull wheel with light and grace,
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.

18. Beaver Brook was within walking distance of the poet's home. See The Nightingale in the Study and Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly.