DEMOCRACY.

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!

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 see'st 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.

On man, as man, retaining yet,

Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,

The crown upon his forehead set,

The immortal gift of God to him.

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And there is reverence in thy look;

For that frail form which mortals wear
The Spirit of the Holiest took,

And veiled his perfect brightness there.

Not from the shallow babbling fount
Of vain philosophy thou art;
He who of old on Syria's mount

Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's heart,

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.

THY WILL BE DONE.

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THY WILL BE DONE.

E see not, know not; all our way
Is night, with Thee alone is day:
From out the torrent's troubled drift,
Above the storm our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done!

The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease?
Thy will be done!

We take with solemn thankfulness
Our burden up, nor ask it less,
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait, for Thee,
Whose will be done!

Though dim as yet in tint and line,
We trace Thy picture's wise design,
And thank Thee that our age supplies
Its dark relief of sacrifice.

Thy will be done!

And if, in our unworthiness,
Thy sacrificial wine we press;

If from Thy ordeal's heated bars

Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!

If, for the age to come, this hour
Of trial hath vicarious power,

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;

The poison plant the fathers spared

All else is overtopping.

East, West, South, North,

It curses the earth;

All justice dies,
And fraud and lies

Live only in its shadow.

"EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?

What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble's heel
On the old star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath

Of the men o' the South?
What whets the knife

For the Union's life? -
Hark to the answer: Slavery!

Then waste no blows on lesser foes
In strife unworthy freemen.
God lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demon !
O North and South,
Its victims both,

Can ye not cry,

"Let slavery die!"

And union find in freedom?

What though the cast-out spirit tear
The nation in his going?

We who have shared the guilt must share
The pang of his o'erthrowing!

Whate'er the loss,

Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of present pain

Who trust in God's hereafter?

For who that leans on His right arm
Was ever yet forsaken?

What righteous cause can suffer harm
If He its part has taken ?

Though wild and loud

And dark the cloud,
Behind its folds

His hand upholds

The calm sky of to-morrow!