And the lightning showed the sainted
Figures on the casement painted,
And exclaimed the shuddering baron,
"Miserere, Domine!"

In that hour of deep contrition,
He beheld, with clearer vision,
Through all outward show and fashion,
Justice, the Avenger, rise.

All the pomp of earth had vanished,
Falsehood and deceit were banished,
Reason spake more loud than passion,
And the truth wore no disguise.

Every vassal of his banner,
Every serf born to his manor,

All those wronged and wretched creatures,
By his hand were freed again.

And, as on the sacred missal
He recorded their dismissal,
Death relaxed his iron features,

And the monk replied, "Amen!"
Many centuries have been numbered,
Since in death the baron slumbered
By the convent's sculptured portal,

Mingling with the common dust:
But the good deed, through the ages
Living in historic pages,
Brighter glows and gleams immortal,
Unconsumed by moth or rust.

RAIN IN SUMMER.

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs !

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, and welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber

Looks at the twisted brooks;

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;

His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain.

From the neighbouring school

Come the boys,

With more than their wonted noise

And commotion;

And down the wet streets

Sail their mimic fleets,

Till the treacherous pool

Engulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.

In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,

Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand,
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head;
With their dilated nostrils spread,

They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapours that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,

The farmer sees

His pastures, and his fields of grain.

As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.

These, and far more than these,

The Poet sees!

He can behold
Aquarius old

Walking the fenceless fields of air;
And from each ample fold

Of the clouds about him rolled

Scattering everywhere
The showery rain,

As the farmer scatters his grain.
He can behold

Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told,
Have not been wholly sung nor said.
For his thought, that never stops,
Follows the water-drops

Down to the graves of the dead,

Down through chasms and gulfs profound,

To the dreary fountain-head

Of lakes and rivers under ground;

And sees them, when the rain is done,

On the bridge of colours seven

Climbing up once more to heaven,
Opposite the setting sun.

Thus the Seer,

With vision clear,

Sees forms appear and disappear,

In the perpetual round of strange

Mysterious change,

From birth to death, from death to birth,

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;

Till glimpses more sublime

Of things, unseen before,

Unto his wondering eyes reveal

The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel

Turning for evermore

In the rapid and rushing river of Time.

TO THE DRIVING CLOUD.

GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omawhaws; Gloomy and dark, as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken! Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints. What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?

How canst thou walk in these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?

How canst thou breathe in this, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?

Ah! 'tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge Looks of dislike in return, and question these walls and these pavements,

Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions

Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,

Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!

Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash! There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple

Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.

There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!

There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn, Or, by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omawhaw Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts?

Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,
Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder
And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,
Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's
Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires
Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the
daybreak

Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horserace';

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches! Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,

Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams.

TO A CHILD.

DEAR child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,

With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,

Thou gazest at the painted tiles,

Whose figures grace,

With many a grotesque form and face,

The ancient chimney of thy nursery!

The lady with the gay macaw,

The dancing girl, the brave bashaw

With bearded lip and chin;

And, leaning idly o'er his gate,

Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command
Thou shakest in thy little hand
The coral rattle with its silver bells,

. Making a merry tune!

Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon
Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!

Those silver bells
Reposed of yore,
As shapeless ore,

Far down in the deep-sunken wells
Of darksome mines,

In some obscure and sunless place,
Beneath huge Chimborazo's base,
Or Potosi's o'erhanging pines!
And thus for thee, O little child,
Through many a danger and escape,
The tall ships passed the stormy cape;
For thee in foreign lands remote,
Beneath the burning, tropic skies,

The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,
Himself as swift and wild,

In falling, clutched the frail arbute,
The fibres of whose shallow root,
Uplifted from the soil, betrayed
The silver veins beneath it laid,
The buried treasures of dead centuries.

But, lo! thy door is left ajar!
Thou hearest footsteps from afar!
And, at the sound,

Thou turnest round

With quick and questioning eyes,

Like one who, in a foreign land, "

Beholds on every hand

Some source of wonder and surprise!

And, restlessly, impatiently,

Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free.

The four walls of thy nursery

Are now like prison walls to thee.

No more thy mother's smiles,

No more the painted tiles,

Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor,

That won thy little, beating heart before;

Thou strugglest for the open door.

Through these once solitary halls

Thy pattering footstep falls.

The sound of thy merry voice

Makes the old walls

Jubilant, and they rejoice

With the joy of thy young heart,

O'er the light of whose gladness

No shadows of sadness

From the sombre background of memory start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,

One whom memory oft recalls,

The Father of his Country dwelt.

And yonder meadows broad and damp