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God give us grace
Each in his place
To bear his lot,

And, murmuring not, Endure and wait and labor !

TO JOHN C. FREMONT.

THY error, Fremont, simply was to act A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact,

And, taking counsel but of common

sense,

To strike at cause as well as consequence.

O, never yet since Roland wound his horn

At Roncesvalles, has a blast been blown Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own,

Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn!

Ithad been safer, doubtless, for the time, To flatter treason, and avoid offence To that Dark Power whose underlying crime

Heaves upward its perpetual turbu lence.

But if thine be the fate of all who break The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their years

Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts

THE WATCHERS.

BESIDE a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head And folded wings and noiseless tread, Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland And lips of blessing, not command, Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other's brows were scarred and knit,

His restless eyes were watch-fires lit, His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

"How long!"-I knew the voice of Peace,

"Is there no respite?- no release?When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

"O Lord, how long!- One human

soul

Is more than any parchment scroll, Or any flag thy winds unroll.

"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?

How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?

"O brother! if thine eye can see, Tell how and when the end shall be, What hope remains for thee and me.'

Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun No strife nor pang beneath the sun, When human rights are staked and won.

"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock, I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock, I walked with Sidney to the block.

"The moor of Marston felt my tread, Through Jersey snows the march I led, My voice Magenta's charges sped.

"But now, through weary day and night,

I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.

"On either side my foe they own:
One guards through love his ghastly
throne,

And one through fear to reverence grown.

"Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,

By open foes, or those afraid

To speed thy coming through my aid?

"Why watch to see who win or fall? — I shake the dust against them all, I leave them to their senseless brawl."

"Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait:

The doom is near, the stake is great: God knoweth if it be too late.

"Still wait and watch; the way prepare Where I with folded wings of prayer May follow, weaponless and bare."

"Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,

"Too late!" its mournful echo sighed, In low lament the answer died.

A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.

But round me, like a silver bell
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.

"Still hope and trust," it sang; "the rod

Must fall, the wine-press must be trod, But all is possible with God!"

TO ENGLISHMEN.

You flung your taunt across the wave; We bore it as became us,

We praised you when your slaves went free :

We seek to unchain ours.

Will ye
Join hands with the oppressor?

And is it Christian England cheers
The bruiser, not the bruised?
And must she run, despite the tears
And prayers of eighteen hundred years,
Amuck in Slavery's crusade?

O black disgrace! O shame and loss Too deep for tongue to phrase on ! Tear from your flag its holy cross, And in your van of battle toss

The pirate's skull-bone blazon!

ASTRÆEA AT THE CAPITOL.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DIS-
TRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862.

WHEN first I saw our banner wave
Above the nation's council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave!

In the foul market-place I stood,

And saw the Christian mother sold, And childhood with its locks of gold, Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.

I shut my eyes, I held my breath,

And, smothering down the wrath and shame

That set my Northern blood aflame, Stood silent, where to speak was death.

Beside me gloomed the prison cell

Where wasted one in slow decline For uttering simple words of mine, And loving freedom all too well.

The flag that floated from the dome Flapped menace in the morning air; I stood a perilled stranger where The human broker made his home.

For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword And Law their threefold sanction gave,

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And to the quarry of the slave Went hawking with our symbol-bird. On the oppressor's side was power; And yet I knew that every wrong, However old, however strong, But waited God's avenging hour.

I knew that truth would crush the lie,Somehow, some time, the end would be:

Yet scarcely dared I hope to see The triumph with my mortal eye.

But now I see it! In the sun

A free flag floats from yonder dome, And at the nation's hearth and home The justice long delayed is done.

Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer,

The message of deliverance comes, But heralded by roll of drums On waves of battle-troubled air!-

Midst sounds that madden and appall, The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!

The harp of David melting through The demon-agonies of Saul!

Not as we hoped ; but what are we?
Above our broken dreams and plans
God lays, with wiser hand than man's,
The corner-stones of liberty.

I cavil not with Him: the voice
That freedom's blessed gospel tells
Is sweet to me as silver bells,
Rejoicing! — yea, I will rejoice!

Dear friends still toiling in the sun, -
Ye dearer ones who, gone before,
Are watching from the eternal shore
The slow work by your hands begun,-

Rejoice with me! The chastening rod

Blossoms with love; the furnace heat Grows cool beneath His blessed feet Whose form is as the Son of God!

Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs
Are sweetened; on our ground of grief
Rise day by day in strong relief
The prophecies of better things.

Rejoice in hope! The day and night Áre one with God, and one with them

Who see by faith the cloudy hem Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light!

THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF

1862.

THE flags of war like storm-birds fly,
The charging trumpets blow;
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,

No earthquake strives below.

And, calm and patient, Nature keeps
Her ancient promise well,
Though o'er her bloom and greenness
sweeps

The battle's breath of hell.

And still she walks in golden hours
Through harvest-happy farms,
And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What mean the gladness of the plain,
This joy of eve and morn,
The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
And yellow locks of corn?

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot;
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain:
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm; Too near to God for doubt or fear, She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below The fires that blast and burn; For all the tears of blood we sow She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours The good of suffering born,

"The gods at last pay well," So Hellas sang her taunting song, "The fisher in his net is caught,

The Chian hath his master bought"; And isle from isle, with laughter long, Took up and sped the mocking parable.

Once more the slow, dumb years Bring their avenging cycle round, And, more than Hellas taught of old,

Our wiser lesson shall be told, Of slaves uprising, freedom-crowned, To break, not wield, the scourge wet with their blood and tears.

THE PROCLAMATION.

SAINT PATRICK, slave to Milcho of the herds

Of Ballymena, wakened with these words:

"Arise, and flee

Out from the land of bondage, and be free!"

Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven

The angels singing of his sins forgiven, And, wondering, sees

His prison opening to their golden keys,

He rose a man who laid him down a slave,

Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,

And outward trod
Into the glorious liberty of God.

He cast the symbols of his shame away; And, passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,

Though back and limb Smarted with wrong, he prayed, "God pardon him!"

So went he forth; but in God's time he came

To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame; And, dving, gave

The land a saint that lost him as a slave.

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