Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess That, even though silent, I have not the less Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree With the large future which I shaped for thee, 241 When, years ago, beside the summer sea, White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, That, to the menace of the brawling flood, Opposed alone its massive quietude, Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think That night-scene by the sea prophetical, (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, And through her pictures human fate divines), That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall In the white light of heaven, the type of one Who, momently by Error's host assailed, Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed; And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done! THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS. WE cross the prairie as of old We go to rear a wall of men On Freedom's southern line, We're flowing from our native hills We go to plant her common schools And give the Sabbaths of the wild The music of her bells. Upbearing, like the Ark of old, No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun! We'll tread the prairie as of old Our fathers sailed the sea, And make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free! SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT.63 WHERE are we going? where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee? Lord of peoples, lord of lands, Bornou land was rich and good, When we went from Bornou land, Life has one, and death has two: Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep Six days to Mammon, one to Cant. In such a time, give thanks to God, That somewhat of the holy rage With which the prophets in their age On all its decent seemings trod, Has set your feet upon the lie, That man and ox and soul and clod Are market stock to sell and buy! The hot words from your lips, my own, To caution trained, might not repeat; But if some tares among the wheat Of generous thought and deed were sown, THE HA SCHISH. No common wrong provoked your zeal; The silken gauntlet that is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel. The brave old strife the fathers saw God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, Give ermined knaves their hour of Ye have the future grand and great, 243 And trancéd Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand. And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human' smile. Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves. No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod; Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of God! 244 FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails, But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, dams, and mills, But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to-day! The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary's walls; Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco's falls. MARY GARVIN. And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and gusty grew, On the hearth of Farmer Garvin blazed the crackling walnut log; Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside him on her mat, "Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin, speaking sadly, under breath, And his gray head slowly snaking, as one who speaks of death. The goodwife dropped her needles: "It is twenty years, to-day, Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the other's thought, 245 "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The door was open thrown; On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone. One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from his head ; Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night is chill with rain." And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the fire amain. The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the fire-light glistened fair Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self I see! Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my child come back to me?" "My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger, sobbing wild; "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child! "She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day "And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong, "When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call, "Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. "Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied ; 66 6 And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them, Earthly daughter, Heavenly mother! thou at least wilt not condemn !' |