"Glideth one through greenest valleys, | And to the young nymphs of the golden Kissing them with lips still sweet; One, mad roaring down the mountains, Stagnates at their feet. "Is it choice whereby the Parsee "He alone, whose hand is bounding Human power and human will, Looking through each soul's surrounding, Knows its good or ill. "For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter What the heart must feel. "Earnest words must needs be spoken When the warm heart bleeds or burns With its scorn of wrong, or pity For the wronged, by turns. "But, by all thy nature's weakness, "Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty To thy lips her trumpet set, Cease not, Voice of holy speaking, Teacher sent of God, be near, Whispering through the day's cool silence, Let my spirit hear! So, when thoughts of evil-doers TO DELAWARE. [Written during the discussion in the Legislature of that State, in the winter of 1846-47, of a bill for the abolition of slavery.} THRICE Welcome to thy sisters of the East, To the strong tillers of a rugged home, With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's foam; West, Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairie bloom, Trail in the sunset, - O redeemed and blest, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's | The great heart of the Infinite beats even, embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky; Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe ! Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air: As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please; As if his ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys ! Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer. Not such the service the benignant Father Requireth at his earthly children's hands: Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands. For Earth he asks it: the full joy of Heaven Knoweth no change of waning or increase; Untroubled flows the river of his peace. He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding The priestly altar and the saintly grave, No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding, Nor incense clouding up the twilight THE DEMON OF THE STUDY. 125 And beats the maid with her unused | And then he reads from paper and book, broom, And the lazy lout with his idle flail, But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, In a low and husky asthmatic tone, With the stolid sameness of posture and look Of one who reads to himself alone; And hies him away ere the break of And hour after hour on my senses come That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum. dawn. The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, And the Cocklane ghost from the barnloft cheer, The fiend of Faust was a faithful one, Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, And the devil of Martin Luther sat By the stout monk's side in social chat. The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him Who seven times crossed the deep, Twined closely each lean and withered limb, Like the nightmare in one's sleep. But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast The evil weight from his back at last. But the demon that cometh day by day To my quiet room and fireside nook, Where the casement light falls dim and gray On faded painting and ancient book, Is a sorrier one than any whose names Are chronicled well by good King James. No bearer of burdens like Caliban, No runner of errands like Ariel, He comes in the shape of a fat old man, Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell; And whence he comes, or whither he goes, I know as I do of the wind which blows. The stout fiend darkens my parlor door; And reads me perchance the self-same lay Which melted in music, the night be fore, From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet, And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet! I cross my floor with a nervous tread, And stir up the fire to roast him out; I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane, And press my hands on my ears, in vain! I've studied Glanville and James the wise, And wizard black-letter tomes which treat Of demons of every name and size, Which a Christian man is presumed to meet, But never a hint and never a line I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate, Then thanks for thy present ! - none | Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter sweeter or better E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter ! Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine! And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express, Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less, That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow, And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie ! Of the fell demon following after ! With the heart's sunshine on their features, Their sorcery - the light which dances Where the raised lid unveils its glances; Or that low-breathed and gentle tone, The music of Love's twilight hours, Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan Above her nightly closing flowers, EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENG- Sweeter than that which sighed of yore LAND LEGEND." How has New England's romance fled, Waking the veriest urchin's scorning! Gone like the Indian wizard's yell And fire-dance round the magic rock, Forgotten like the Druid's spell At moonrise by his holy oak! No more along the shadowy glen, Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men ; No more the unquiet churchyard dead Glimpse upward from their turfy bed, Startling the traveller, late and lone; As, on some night of starless weather, They silently commune together, Each sitting on his own head-stone ! The roofless house, decayed, deserted, Its living tenants all departed, No longer rings with midnight revel Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil; No pale blue flame sends out its flashes Through creviced roof and shattered sashes! The witch-grass round the hazel spring But there no more shall withered hags Along the charmed Ausonian shore ! Sleeps calmly where the living laid her, So perished Albion's " glammarye," With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping, His charmed torch beside his knee, That even the dead himself might see The magic scroll within his keeping. And now our modern Yankee sees Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries; And naught above, below, around, Of life or death, of sight or sound, Whate'er its nature, form, or look, Excites his terror or surprise, All seeming to his knowing eyes Familiar as his "catechize,' Or "Webster's Spelling-Book." HAMPTON BEACH. THE sunlight glitters keen and bright, Lies stretching to my dazzled sight The tremulous shadow of the Sea ! |