THE EVE OF ELECTION. In its pale fire The village spire Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance; The painted walls Transfigured stand in marble trance! O'er fallen leaves The west wind grieves, Yet comes a seed-time round again; The State sown free With baleful tares or healthful grain. The shadows meet Of Destiny, whose hands conceal That shape the State, And make or mar the common weal. The powers that be; I stand by Empire's primal springs; In every street, And hear the tread of uncrowned kings! Hark! through the crowd 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! 95 Not lightly fall The written scrolls a breath can float; The kingliest act Of Freedom, is the freeman's vote! For pearls that gem A diadem The diver in the deep sea dies; We boast to-night Is ours through costlier sacrifice: The blood of Vane, His prison pain Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod, Drew strength from death, And prayed her Russell up to God! Our hearts grow cold, We lightly hold A right which brave men died to gain; The stake, the cord, The axe, the sword, Grim nurses at its birth of pain. The shadow rend, And o'er us bend, -- O martyrs, with your crowns and palms, — Breathe through these throngs Your battle songs, Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms! Look from the sky, Like God's great eye, Thou solemn moon, with searching beam; Till in the sight Of thy pure light Our mean self-seekings meaner seem. LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. Shame from our hearts The fraud designed, the purpose dark; And smite away The hands we lay Profanely on the sacred ark. 97 The foul human vultures From the hearths of their cabins, With a vain plea for mercy No stout knee was crooked; In the homes of their rearing, Poor children and wives! The smith shall not come; Unyoke the brown oxen, The ploughman lies dumb. Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh, O dreary death-train, With pressed lips as bloodless As lips of the slain ! Kiss down the young eyelids, Smooth down the gray hairs; Let tears quench the curses That burn through your prayers. |