Rejoice with me! The chastening rod Blossoms with love; the furnace heat Grows cool beneath His blessed feet Whose form is as the Son of God! Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs Rejoice in hope! The day and night Are one with God, and one with them Who see by faith the cloudy hem Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light! THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. HE flags of war like storm-birds fly, TH The charging trumpets blow; Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below. And, calm and patient, Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell. And still she walks in golden hours Through harvest-happy farms, And still she wears her fruits and flowers Like jewels on her arms. What mean the gladness of the plain, This joy of eve and morn, The mirth that shakes the beard of grain And yellow locks of corn? Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, But even-paced come round the years, She meets with smiles our bitter grief, She mocks with tint of flower and leaf Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear Too near to God for doubt or fear, She shares th' eternal calm. She knows the seed lies safe below The fires that blast and burn; For all the tears of blood we sow She waits the rich return. She sees with clearer eye than ours The hearts that blossom like her flowers, O, give to us, in times like these, The vision of her eyes; And make her fields and fruited trees Our golden prophecies! O, give to us her finer ear! Above this stormy din, We too would hear the bells of cheer Ring peace and freedom in! K NOW'ST thou, O slave-cursed land! How, when the Chian's cup of guilt Was full to overflow, there came God's justice in the sword of flame That, red with slaughter to its hilt, Blazed in the Cappadocian victor's hand? *It is recorded that the Chians, when subjugated by Mithridates of Cappadocia, were delivered up to their own slaves, to be carried away captive to Colchis. Athenæus considers this a just punishment for their wickedness in first introducing the slave-trade into Greece. From this ancient villany of the Chians the proverb arose, "The Chian hath bought himself a master." |