I felt a sense of bitter loss,

Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,
And loathing fear, as if my path

A serpent stretched across.

All love of home, all pride of place,
All generous confidence and trust,
Sank smothering in that deep disgust
And anguish of disgrace.

Down on my native hills of June,
And home's green quiet, hiding all,
Fell sudden darkness, like the fall
Of midnight upon noon!

And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God

The blasphemy of wrong.

"O Mother, from thy memories proud,
Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth,
Lend this dead air a breeze of health,
And smite with stars this cloud.

Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,
Rise awful in thy strength," I said;
Ah, me! I spake but to the dead;
I stood upon her grave!

6th mo., 1854.

LINES,

ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.

I

SAID I stood upon thy grave,

My Mother State, when last the moon
Of blossoms clomb the skies of June.

And, scattering ashes on my head,
I wore, undreaming of relief,
The sackcloth of thy shame and grief.
Again that moon of blossoms shines
On leaf and flower and folded wing,
And thou hast risen with the spring!
Once more thy strong maternal arms
Are round about thy children flung, -
A lioness that guards her young!

No threat is on thy closed lips,

But in thine eye a power to smite
The mad wolf backward from its light.
Southward the baffled robber's track
Henceforth runs only; hereaway,
The fell lycanthrope finds no prey.
Henceforth, within thy sacred gates,
His first low howl shall downward draw
The thunder of thy righteous law.

Not mindless of thy trade and gain,
But, acting on the wiser plan,
Thou 'rt grown conservative of man.
So shalt thou clothe with life the hope,
Dream-painted on the sightless eyes
Of him who sang of Paradise,

The vision of a Christian man,
In virtue as in stature great,
Embodied in a Christian State.

And thou, amidst thy sisterhood
Forbearing long, yet standing fast,
Shalt win their grateful thanks at last;

When North and South shall strive no more,

And all their feuds and fears be lost

In Freedom's holy Pentecost.

6th mo., 1855.

94

My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;

I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try

The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

While there's a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,

Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust,

While there's a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,

Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man's a man to-day!

THE EVE OF ELECTION.

ROM gold to gray

FR

Our mild sweet day

Of Indian Summer fades too soon;

But tenderly

Above the sea

Hangs, white and calm, the Hunter's moon.

In its pale fire

The village spire

Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;

The painted walls
Whereon it falls

Transfigured stand in marble trance!

O'er fallen leaves

The west wind grieves,

Yet comes a seed-time round again;
And morn shall see

The State sown free

With baleful tares or healthful grain.

Along the street

The shadows meet

Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The moulds of fate

That shape the State,

And make or mar the common weal.

And princes meet

In every street,

And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!

Hark! through the crowd

The laugh runs loud,

Beneath the sad, rebuking moon.

God save the land

A careless hand

May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!

No jest is this;

One cast amiss

May blast the hope of Freedom's year.

O, take me where

Are hearts of prayer,

And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!