OUR STATE.

All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled :

When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;

Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!

OUR STATE.

HE South-land boasts its teeming cane,

T The prairied West its heavy grain,

And sunset's radiant gates unfold
On rising marts and sands of gold!

Rough, bleak and hard, our little State
Is scant of soil, of limits strait ;
Her yellow sands are sands alone,
Her only mines are ice and stone!

From Autumn frost to April rain,
Too long her winter woods complain;
From budding flower to falling leaf,
Her summer time is all too brief.

Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands,

And wintry hills, the school-house stands,
And what her rugged soil denies,

The harvest of the mind supplies.

The riches of the commonwealth

Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health;

And more to her than gold or grain,

The cunning hand and cultured brain.

79

For well she keeps her ancient stock,
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock;
And still maintains, with milder laws,
And clearer light, the Good Old Cause!

Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands,

While near her school the church-spire stands ; Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule,

While near her church-spire stands the school!

STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

1850.

HE evil days have come, the poor

TH

Are made a prey;

Bar up the hospitable door,

Put out the fire-lights, point no more
The wanderer's way.

For Pity now is crime; the chain
Which binds our States

Is melted at her hearth in twain,
Is rusted by her tears' soft rain :
Close up her gates.

Our Union, like a glacier stirred
By voice below,

Or bell of kine, or wing of bird,
A beggar's crust, a kindly word
May overthrow !

Poor, whispering tremblers!.

Our blood and name;

Bursting its century-bolted frost,

yet we boast

Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast
Cries out for shame!

STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

O for the open firmament,

The prairie free,

The desert hillside, cavern-rent,

The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent,
The Bushman's tree!

Than web of Persian loom most rare,
Or soft divan,

Better the rough rock, bleak and bare,
Or hollow tree, which man may share
With suffering man.

I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law,
Let Love be dumb;

Clasping her liberal hands in awe,
Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw
From hearth and home."

I hear another voice: "The poor
Are thine to feed;

Turn not the outcast from thy door,
Nor give to bonds and wrong once more
Whom God hath freed."

Dear Lord! between that law and thee
No choice remains;
Yet not untrue to man's decree,
Though spurning its rewards, is he
Who bears its pains.

Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast
And threatening word;

I read the lesson of the Past,
That firm endurance wins at last
More than the sword.

O, clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou
So calm and strong!

Lend strength to weakness, teach us how
The sleepless eyes of God look through
This night of wrong!

81

S

A SABBATH SCENE.

A SABBATH SCENE.

When down the summer shaded street
A wasted female figure,

With dusky brow and naked feet,
Came rushing wild and eager.

She saw the white spire through the trees,
She heard the sweet hymn swelling;
O, pitying Christ! a refuge give

That poor one in thy dwelling!

Like a scared fawn before the hounds,
Right up the aisle she glided,
While close behind her, whip in hand,
A lank-haired hunter strided.

She raised a keen and bitter cry,
To Heaven and Earth appealing;
Were manhood's generous pulses dead?
Had woman's heart no feeling?

A score of stout hands rose between
The hunter and the flying;

Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyes
Flashed tearful, yet defying.

"Who dares profane this house and day ?”
Cried out the angry pastor.

"Why, bless your soul, the wench's a slave, And I'm her lord and master!

"I've law and gospel on my side,

And who shall dare refuse me?" Down came the parson, bowing low, "My good sir, pray excuse me!

"Of course I know your right divine
To own and work and whip her;
Quick, deacon, throw that Polyglot
Before the wench, and trip her!"

83.