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Yon spire is but the branchless pine
That cuts the evening sky."

"O hush and hark! What sounds are these

But chants and holy hymns?"

"Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees

Through all their leafy limbs."

"Is it a chapel bell that fills

The air with its low tone? "Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, The insect's vesper drone."

"The Christ be praised!-He sets for me A blessed cross in sight!

66

'Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree With two gaunt arms outright !

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"Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,
It mattereth not, my knave;
Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,
The cross is for my grave!

"My life is sped; I shall not see
My home-set sails again;
The sweetest eyes of Normandie
Shall watch for me in vain.

"Yet onward still to ear and eye
The baffling marvel calls;
I fain would look before I die
On Norembega's walls.

"So, haply, it shall be thy part
At Christian feet to lay
The mystery of the desert's heart

My dead hand plucked away.

"Leave me an hour of rest; go thou
And look from yonder heights;
Perchance the valley even now
Is starred with city lights."

The honghman climbed the poorest hill

But, through the drear woods, lone and | And Norembega proved again

still,

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A shadow and a dream,

He found the Norman's nameless grave

Within the hemlock's shade,

And, stretching wide its arms to save, The sign that God had made,

The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot

And made it holy ground:
He needs the earthly city not
Who hath the heavenly found.

NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON.

NAUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old

Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape

Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds

"These woods, perchance, no secret And the relentless smiting of the waves,

hide

Of lordly tower and hall; Yon river in its wanderings wide Has washed no city wall;

"Yet mirrored in the sullen stream The holy stars are given:

Is Norembega, then, a dream
Whose waking is in Heaven?

"No builded wonder of these lands
My weary eyes shall see ;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me

"Urbs Syon mystica'; I see Its mansions passing fair, 'Condita cælo'; let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there!"

Above the dying exile hung
The vision of the bard,
As faltered on his failing tongue
The song of good Bernard.

The henchman dug at dawn a grave
Beneath the hemlocks brown,
And to the desert's keeping gave
The lord of fief and town.

Years after, when the Sieur Champlain
Sailed up the unknown stream,

Awoke one morning from a pleasant

dream

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NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON.

349

Send me," he prayed, "the angel of my | Torment him like a Mohawk's captive

dream!

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Yea, thou, God, seest me !"
Nauhaught drew
Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus

The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back

To the brown fishing-hamlet by the

sea;

And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked:

"Who hath lost aught to-day?" "I," said a voice; "Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, My daughter's handiwork." He looked, and lo!

One stood before him in a coat of frieze, And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of wings. Marvelling, he dropped within the stranger's hand'

The silken web, and turned to go his way.

But the man said: "A tithe at least is yours;

Take it in God's name as an honest man."

And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed Over the golden gift, "Yea, in God's

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He saw her lift her eyes; he felt

The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing.

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because,"

the brown eyes lower fell, "Because, you see, I love you!"

Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, because they love him.

GARIBALDI.

IN trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw

The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone

The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy. hilled,

MY TRIUMPH.

Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky

zone

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AFTER ELECTION.

351

THE day's sharp strife is ended now,
Our work is done, God knoweth how!
As on the thronged, unrestful town
The patience of the moon looks down,
I wait to hear, beside the wire,
The voices of its tongues of fire.

Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first:
Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!
Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke;
That sound from lake and prairie broke,
That sunset-gun of triumph rent
The silence of a continent!

That signal from Nebraska sprung,
This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!
Is that thy answer, strong and free,
O loyal heart of Tennessee?
What strange, glad voice is that which

calls

From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?

From Mississippi's fountain-head
A sound as of the bison's tread!
There rustled freedom's Charter Oak!
In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!
Cheer answers cheer from rise to set
Of sun. We have a country yet!

The praise, O God, be thine alone!
Thou givest not for bread a stone;
Thou hast not led us through the night
To blind us with returning light;
Not through the furnace have we passed,
To perish at its mouth at last.

O night of peace, thy flight restrain!
November's moon, be slow to wane!
Shine on the freedman's cabin floor,
On brows of prayer a blessing pour;
And give, with full assurance blest,
The weary heart of Freedom rest!
1868.

MY TRIUMPH.

THE autumn-time has come;
On woods that dream of bloom,
And over purpling vines,
The low sun fainter shines.

The aster-flower is failing, The hazel's gold is paling;

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