ICHABOD!

CO fallen ! so lost! the light withdrawn

Which once he wore !
The glory from his gray hairs gone

Forevermore!

Revile him not, — the Tempter hath

A snare for all ; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,

Befit his fall !

0, dumb be passion's stormy rage,

When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age

Falls back in night!

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark

A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,

From hope and heaven?

Let not the land, once proud of him,

Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,

Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,

From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,

In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught

Save power remains, –
A fallen angel's pride of thought,

Still strong in chains.

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.

THE South-land boasts its teeming cane,

1 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.

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.

THE evil days have come, - the poor

1 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 ! — yet we boast

Our blood and name;
Bursting its century-bolted frost,
Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast

Cries out for shame!

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. 0, 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!

C CARCE had the solemn Sabbath-bell D Ceased quivering in the steeple, Scarce had the parson to his desk

Walked stately through his people,