Vainly to the child of Fashion, Giving to ideal woe Graceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go; Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show! Nay, my words are all too sweeping; In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping; Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part. And from yonder sunny valleys, Worthier than the North can boast, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost. Now, the soul alone is willing. Faint the heart and weak the knee; And as yet no lip is thrilling With the mighty words "BE FREE!" Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be! Meanwhile, turning from the reve1 To the prison-cell my sight, For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night! Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say. Ye with heart and vision gifted LINES. Whose worn faces have been lifted To the slowly-growing light, 39 Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of Ye who through long years of trial And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of the last! O my brothers! O my sisters! Would to God that ye were near, Of a sorrow strange and drear; Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice I seem to hear! With the storm above us driving, With the false earth mined below Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow. Well it may be that our natures Have grown sterner and more hard, And the freshness of their features Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred, And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred. Be it so. It should not swerve us Than the pastime of the slave; Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the grave. Let us then, uniting, bury All our idle feuds in dust, Mutual faith and common trust; Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is most just. From the eternal shadow rounding Bid us be of heart and cheer, Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear. Know we not our dead are looking Shall we cloud their blessed Let us draw their mantles o'er us Let us do the work before us, Cheerly, bravely, while we may, Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day! YORKTOWN. Yorktown's ruins, ranked and Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill: Who curbs his steed at head of one? The earth which bears this calm array YORKTOWN. October's clear and noonday sun Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines Nor thou alone: with one glad voice While they who hunt her quail with fear : But who are they, who, cowering, wait Classed with the battle's common spoil, O, veil your faces, young and brave! 41 Lo! threescore years have passed; and where With Northern drum-roll, and the clear, O, fields still green and fresh in story, Your world-wide honor stained with shame, - Where's now the flag of that old war? Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star? Bear witness, Palo Alto's day, Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey, Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak: Symbol of terror and despair, Of chains and slaves, go seek it there! Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks ! |