THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. THE flags of war like storm-birds fly, And, calm and patient, Nature keeps Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps And still she walks in golden hours And still she wears her fruits and flowers What mean the gladness of the plain, The mirth that shakes the beard of grain Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, But even-paced come round the years, She meets with smiles our bitter grief, Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear She knows the seed lies safe below She sees with clearer eye than ours O, give to us, in times like these, And make her fields and fruited trees Our golden prophecies! O, give to us her finer ear! Above this stormy din, We too would hear the bells of cheer MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS.42 KNOW'ST thou, O slave-cursed land! How, when the Chian's cup of guilt Was full to overflow, there came God's justice in the sword of flame That, red with slaughter to its hilt, Blazed in the Cappadocian victor's hand? The heavens are still and far; But, not unheard of awful Jove, The sighing of the island slave Was answered, when the Ægean wave The keels of Mithridates clove, And the vines shrivelled in the breath of war. "Robbers of Chios! hark," Then rose the long lament From the hoar sea-god's dusky caves: The priestess rent her hair and cried, "Woe! woe! The gods are sleepless-eyed!" And, chained and scourged, the slaves of slaves, The lords of Chios into exile went. "The gods at last pay well," Once more the slow, dumb years Of slaves uprising, freedom-crowned, To break, not wield, the scourge wet with their blood and tears. THE PROCLAMATION. SAINT PATRICK, slave to Milcho of the herds Arise, and flee Out from the land of bondage, and be free!” Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven His prison opening to their golden keys, He rose a man who laid him down a slave, Into the glorious liberty of God. He cast the symbols of his shame away; Smarted with wrong, he prayed, him!" "God pardon So went he forth: but in God's time he came The land a saint that lost him as a slave. O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong! Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraint Heap only on his head the coals of prayer. Gc forth, like him! like him return again, And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed. ANNIVERSARY POEM. [READ before the Alumni of the Friends' Yearly Meeting School, at the Annual Meeting at Newport, R. I., 15th 6th Mo., 1863.] ONCE more, dear friends, you meet beneath Not yet the sword has found its sheath, Yet trouble springs not from the ground, The Eternal order circles round, And wave and storm find mete and bound Full long our feet the flowery ways Content with creed and garb and phrase: Led up to God. Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear, Too long the world has smiled to hear By others sown; To see us stir the martyr fires And wrap our satisfied desires But now the cross our worthies bore |