Through this broad street, restless ever, Wealth and fashion side by side; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide. Underneath yon dome, whose coping Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall. Base of heart! They vilely barter For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great hope of their race. Yet, where festal lamps are throwing Backward on the sunset air; And the low quick pulse of music beats its measures sweet and rare: There to-night shall woman's glances, Seek to touch their garments' them, With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth condemn. From this glittering lie my vision Full before me have arisen Other pictures dark and strange; From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness change. Hark! the heavy gate is swinging Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does not show. Pitying God!-Is that a WOMAN On whose wrist the shackles clash? Are they MEN whose eyes of madness from that sad procession flash? Still the dance goes gayly onward! That the SLAVE-SHIP lies in waiting, rocking on Vainly to that mean Ambition With a reptile's slimy crawl, Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish call. Vainly to the child of Fashion, Graceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go; Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show! Nay, my words are all too sweeping: In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping; Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part. And from yonder sunny valleys, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost. Now, the soul alone is willing: Faint the heart and weak the knee; And as yet no lip is thrilling With the mighty words "BE FREE!" Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be! Meanwhile, turning from the revel For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night! "To thy duty now and ever! Dream no more of rest or stay; Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say. Ye with heart and vision gifted To discern and love the right, To the slowly-growing light, Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of night !— Ye who through long years of trial And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of the last! Oh, my brothers! oh, my sisters! Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice With the storm above us driving, With the false earth mined below Who shall marvel if thus striving Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow. Well it may be that our natures Have grown sterner and more hard, And the freshness of their features And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred. Be it so. It should not swerve us Better is the storin above it than the quiet of the grave. Let us then, uniting, bury All our idle feuds in dust, VOL. I. 13 Mutual faith and common trust; Always he who most forgiveth in his brother 19 most just. From the eternal shadow rounding Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear. Know we not our dead are looking Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloud their blessed skies? Let us draw their mantles o'er us Let us do the work before us, Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day! LINES, FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND. A STRENGTH thy service cannot tire— Oh! Freedom's God! be thou to him! Speak through him words of power and fear, |