THY WILL BE DONE.

WE see not, know not; all our way is night, with Thee alone is day: From out the torrent's troubled drift, Above the storm our prayers we lift,

Thy will be done!

The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease?
Thy will be done!

We take with solemn thankfulness
Our burden up, nor ask it less,
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee,
Whose will be done!

Though dim as yet in tint and line,
We trace Thy picture's wise design,
And thank Thee that our age supplies
Its dark relief of sacrifice.

Thy will be done!

And if, in our unworthiness,
Thy sacrificial wine we press;
If from Thy ordeal's heated bars

Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!

If, for the age to come, this hour
Of trial hath vicarious power,
And, blest by Thee, our present pain,
Be Liberty's eternal gain,

Thy will be done!

Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies !
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,
Thy will be done!

God lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demon!
O North and South,
Its victims both,

Can ye not cry,

"Let slavery die!"

And union find in freedom?

What though the cast-out spirit tear
The nation in his going?

We who have shared the guilt must share

The pang of his o'erthrowing!
Whate'er the loss,
Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of present pain

Who trust in God's hereafter?

For who that leans on His right arm
Was ever yet forsaken?
What righteous cause can suffer harm
If He its part has taken?
Though wild and loud
And dark the cloud,
Behind its folds
His hand upholds

The calm sky of to-morrow!

Above the maddening cry for blood,
Above the wild war-drumming,

Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good

The evil overcoming.
Give prayer and purse
To stay the Curse

Whose wrong we share,
Whose shame we bear,

Whose end shall gladden Heaven!

In vain the bells of war shall ring
Of triumphs and revenges,
While still is spared the evil thing
That severs and estranges.
But blest the ear
That yet shall hear
The jubilant bell
That rings the knell
Of Slavery forever!

Then let the selfish lip be dumb,
And hushed the breath of sighing:
Before the joy of peace must come
The pains of purifying.

A lane for freedom through the level spears,

Still take thou courage ! God has spoken through thee, Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free! The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear

Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear.

Who would recall them now must first arrest

The winds that blow down from the free Northwest,

Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back

The Mississippi to its upper springs. Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack

But the full time to harden into things.

THE WATCHERS.

BESIDE a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

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Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain, But all the air was quick with pain And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head And folded wings and noiseless tread, Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland And lips of blessing, not command, Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other's brows were scarred and knit,

His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

"How long!"-I knew the voice of Peace,

"Is there no respite?-no release? When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

"O Lord, how long! soul

One human

Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.

"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?

How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?

"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me."

Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun No strife nor pang beneath the sun, When human rights are staked and won.

"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock, I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock, I walked with Sidney to the block.

"The moor of Marston felt my tread, Through Jersey snows the march I led, My voice Magenta's charges sped.

"But now, through weary day and night,

I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.

"Or either side my foe they own:
One guards through love his ghastly
throne,

And one through fear to reverence grown.

' "Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,

By open foes, or those afraid

To speed thy coming through my aid?

"Why watch to see who win or fall? I shake the dust against them all, I leave them to their senseless brawl."

"Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait;

The doom is near, the take is great: God knoweth if it be too late.

"Still wait and watch; the way prepare Where I with folded wings of prayer May follow, weaponless and bare."

"Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,

"Too late!" its mournful echo sighed, In low lament the answer died.

Well knowing that the fettered slave
Left friendly lips no option save
To pity or to blame us.

You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will,

Not lack of power," you told us: We showed our free-state records; still You mocked, confounding good and ill, Slave-haters and slaveholders.

We struck at Slavery; to the verge

Of power and means we checked it ; Lopresto, change! its claims you urge,

Send greetings to it o'er the surge,
And comfort and protect it.

But yesterday you scarce could shake, In slave-abhorring rigor,

Our Northern palms for conscienc sake:

To-day you clasp the hands that ache With" walloping the nigger ! " 71

O Englishmen ! - in hope and creed,
In blood and tongue our brothers!
We too are heirs of Runnymede;
And Shakespeare's fame and Crom-
well's deed

Are not alone our mother's.

"Thicker than water," in one rill

Through centuries of story

Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still We share with you its good and ill, The shadow and the glory.

Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave Nor length of years can part us: Your right is ours to shrine and grave, The common freehold of the brave, The gift of saints and martyrs.

Our very sins and follies teach

Our kindred frail and human: We carp at faults with bitter speech, The while for one unshared by each, We have a score in common.

We bowed the heart, if not the knee,

To England's Queen, God bless her