And, scattering ashes on my head, Again that moon of blossoms shines Once more thy strong maternal arms No threat is on thy closéd lips, But in thine eye a power to smite Not mindless of thy trade and gain, The vision of a Christian man, And thou, amidst thy sisterhood When North and South shall strive no more, In Freedom's holy Pentecost. 6th mo., 1855. My palace is the people's hall, To-day let pomp and vain pretence I set a plain man's common sense The strength of gold and land; While there's a grief to seek redress, Where weighs our living manhood less While there's a right to need my vote, Up! clouted knee'and ragged coat! THE EVE OF ELECTION. ROM gold to gray FF Our mild sweet day Of Indian Summer fades too soon; But tenderly Above the sea Hangs, white and calm, the Hunter's moon. THE EVE ̧OF ELECTION. In its pale fire Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance; 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. Along the street The shadows meet Of Destiny, whose hands conceal That shape the State, And make or mar the common weal. Around I see 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 The laugh runs loud, 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 crowning fact, 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, 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. |