southwest.

The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent,
The Bushman's tree!

Than web of Persian loom most rare,
Or soft divan,

Better the rough rock, bleak and bare,
Or hollow tree, which man may share
With suffering man.

I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law,
Let Love be dumb;
Clasping her liberal hands in awe,
Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw
From hearth and home."

I hear another voice: "The poor
Are thine to feed ;
Turn not the outcast from thy door,
Nor give to bonds and wrong once more
Whom God hath freed.'

Dear Lord! between that law and thee
No choice remains ;
Yet not untrue to man's decree,
Though spurning its rewards, is he
Who bears its pains.

Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast
And threatening word;

I read the lesson of the Past,
That firm endurance wins at last
More than the sword.

O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou So calm and strong!

Lend strength to weakness, teach us how The sleepless eyes of God look through This night of wrong!

A SABBATH SCENE.

Each gray cairn on the Northman's

coast

Cries out for shame!

O for the open firmament,

The prairie free,

Like a scared fawn before the hounds,
Right up the aisle she glided,
While close behind her, whip in hand,
A lank-haired hunter strided.

She raised a keen and bitter cry,

To Heaven and Earth appealing; — Were manhood's generous pulses dead? Had woman's heart no feeling?

A score of stout hands rose between

The hunter and the flying: Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyes Flashed tearful, yet defying.

"Who dares profane this house and day?"

Cried out the angry pastor. "Why, bless your soul, the wench 's a slave,

And I'm her lord and master !

"I've law and gospel on my side,
And who shall dare refuse me?"
Down came the parson, bowing low,
"My good sir, pray excuse me !

"Of course I know your right divine
To own and work and whip her;
Quick, deacon, throw that Polyglott
Before the wench, and trip her!"

Plump dropped the holy tome, and

o'er

Its sacred pages stumbling, Bound hand and foot, a slave once more, The hapless wretch lay trembling.

I saw the parson tie the knots,

The while his flock addressing,

The Scriptural claims of slavery
With text on text impressing.

66

169

All still the very altar's cloth
Had smothered down her shrieking,
And, dumb, she turned from face to
face,

For human pity seeking!

I saw her dragged along the aisle,
Her shackles harshly clanking;
I heard the parson, over all,

The Lord devoutly thanking!

My brain took fire: "Is this," I cried, "The end of prayer and preach

ing?

Then down with pulpit, down with priest,

And give us Nature's teaching!

"Foul shame and scorn'be on ye all
Who turn the good to evil,
And steal the Bible from the Lord,
To give it to the Devil!

"Than garbled text or parchment law
I own a statute higher;
And God is true, though every book
And every man's a liar!"

Just then I felt the deacon's hand
In wrath my coat-tail seize on;
I heard the priest cry, “Infidel !
The lawyer mutter, "Treason!"

I started up, where now were church,
Slave, master, priest, and people?
I only heard the supper-bell,
Instead of clanging steeple.

All secular occupations

Are deadly sins, we must fulfil

Our moral obligations :

"And this commends itself as one
To every conscience tender;
As Paul sent back Onesimus,

My Christian friends, we send her!"

Around the Holy Mother,

Waved softly there, as if God's truth And Mercy kissed each other.

And freely from the cherry-bough Above the casement swinging, With golden bosom to the sun,

The oriole was singing.

As bird and flower made plain of old
The lesson of the Teacher,

So now I heard the written Word
Interpreted by Nature!

TION DAY.

THE proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;.

And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;

I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

While there's a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,

Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust,
While there's a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,
Up clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man's a man to-day!

As Eve before her fall";

Give sweet Kathleen to me,

And the old lord's wife is dead and gone,

And a happy man is he,

For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
With her darling on his knee.

FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS.

IN calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue

Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung,

Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung,

Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane!

There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear;

Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw ! There let me strive with each besetting sin,

Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain

The sore disquiet of a restless brain;

And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein,

Not like the hireling, for his selfish

gain,

With backward glances and reluctant tread,

Making a merit of his coward dread, But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown,

Walking as one to pleasant service led;

Doing God's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in his strength alone!