I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled-
The Waster seemed the Builder too;
Up springing from the ruined Old
saw the New.
"Twas but the ruin of the bad-
The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Was living still.
Calm grew the brows of him I feared;
The frown which awed me passed away,
And left behind a smile which cheered
Like breaking day.
The grain grew green on battle-plains,
O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow;
The slave stood forging from his chains
The spade and plough.
Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay
And cottage windows, flower-entwined,
Looked out upon the peaceful bay
And hills behind.
Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red,
The lights on brimming crystal fell,
Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head
And mossy well.
Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope,
Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed,
And with the idle gallows-repe
The young child prayed.
Where the doomed victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours,
Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,
Came crowned with flowers.
18
Grown wiser for the lesson given,
I fear no longer, for I know
That, where the share is deepest driven,
The best fruits grow.
The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone—
These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.
Oh! backward-looking son of time !-
The new is old, the old is new,
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.
So wisely taught the Indian seer;
Destroying Seva, forming Brahm,
Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear,
Are one, the same.
As idly as, in that old day,
Thou mournest, did thy sires repine,
So, in his time, thy child grown gray,
Shall sigh for thine.
Yet, not the less for them or thou
The eternal step of Progress beats
To that great anthem, calm and slow,
Which God repeats!
Take heart—the Waster builds again-
A charmed life old goodness hath;
The tares may perish-but the grain
Is not for death.
God works in all things; all obey
His first propulsion from the night:
Ho, wake and watch!-the world is gray
With morning light!
LOOK on him!-through his dungeon grate
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed,
His hand upholds his drooping head—
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard,
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard ;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long, dishevelled locks of snow.
No grateful fire before him glows,
And yet the winter's breath is chill;
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent, save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip;
O sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate !
Just God! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison bed,
Whose eye-balls, through his horrid hair,
Gleam on him, fierce and red;
And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creep
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson with murder, touches him!
What has the gray-haired prisoner done?
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so; his crime's a fouler one;
GOD MADE THE OLD MAN POOR!
For this he shares a felon's cell-
The fittest earthly type of hell!
For this, the boon for which he poured
His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost-
His blood-gained liberty is lost!
And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rain On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga's plain?
Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars;
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument upreared to thee-
Piled granite and a prison cell-
The land repays thy service well!
Go, ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout:
Let boastful eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;
Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With glory for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise "our glorious liberty!"
But when the patron cannon jars,
That prison's cold and gloomy wall
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind and fall-
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb,
What is your carnival to him?
Down with the LAW that binds him thus !
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of God and human kind!
Open the prison's living tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of God;
No longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's hand.
WRITTEN ON READING PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED BY CLERGYMEN AGAINST THE ABOLITION OF THE GALLOWS.
THE suns of eighteen centuries have shone
Since the Redeemer walked with man, and made
The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of stone,
And mountain moss, a pillow for his head;
And He, who wandered with the peasant Jew,
And broke with publicans the bread of shame,
And drank, with blessings in his Father's name,
The water which Samaria's outcast drew,
Hath now his temples upon every shore,
Altar and shrine and priest,-and incense dim Evermore rising, with low prayer and hymn, From lips which press the temple's marble floor, Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread Cross He bore
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