Gentlest of spirits!
Our tears are shed, our sighs are given;
Why mourn to know thou art a free

Partaker of the joys of Heaven?
Finished thy work, and kept thy faith
In Christian firmness unto death;
And beautiful as sky and earth,

O for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining,

By man deserted and reviled,

Yet faithful to its trust remaining. Still prompt and resolute to save From scourge and chain the hunted slave;

Unwavering in the Truth's defence, Even where the fires of Hate were burning,

The unquailing eye of innocence

Alone upon the oppressor turning!

O loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee.

The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee;

And grateful tears, like summer rain,
Quickened its dying grass again!
And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine,

Shall come the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine

Recalling memories sweet and holy!

ing,

The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing!

But woe for us! who linger still

With holier, tenderer beauty shining; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening Heaven! As if that pure and blessed light,

From off the Eternal altar flowing,

And for the outcast and forsaken,

The spirit to its worship going!

TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN.

1846.

Darkly upon our struggling way

The storm of human hate is sweeping;
Hunted and branded, and a prey,
Our watch amidst the darkness keep-
ing,

O for that hidden strength which can
Nerve unto death the inner man !
O for thy spirit, tried and true,

And constant in the hour of trial,
Prepared to suffer, or to do,

In meekness and in self-denial.

fear

Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear,

Actæon-like, the bay of thine own hounds,

Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds?

Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand,

With game afoot, unslipped the hungry

pack,

To hunt down Freedom in her chosen

land,

Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong,

doubling back,

These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track?

Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue,

Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung,

O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man? How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting,

And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting,

Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star!

The Fates are just; they give us but our

own ;

Nemesis ripens what our hands have

sown.

There is an Eastern story, not unknown, Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill

Called demons up his water-jars to fill ; Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, kept pouring still.

In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought,

Faster and faster were the buckets brought,

Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned!

So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes

Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes

The wrath of man to praise Him. It

may be,

That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door

Through which thy slave-cursed T xas entered in,

From out the blood and fire, the wrong

and sin,

Of the stormed city and the ghastly plain,

Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody

rain,

A myriad-handed Aztec host may pour, And swarthy South with pallid North combine

Back on thyself to turn thy dark design.

LINES,

75

longer,

But stoop in chains upon her down

ward way,

Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger

raising,

"Thou, who to thy Church hast given
Keys alike, of hell and heaven,
Make our word and witness sure,
Let the curse we speak endure !

Silent, while that curse was said, Every bare and listening head Bowed in reverent awe, and then All the people said, Amen!

Seven times the bells have tolled, For the centuries gray and old, Since that stoled and mitred band Cursed the tyrants of their land.

Since the priesthood, like a tower, Stood between the poor and power; And the wronged and trodden down Blessed the abbot's shaven crown.

Gone, thank God, their wizard spell,
Lost, their keys of heaven and hell;
Yet I sigh for men as bold
As those bearded priests of old.

Now, too oft the priesthood wait
At the threshold of the state,
Waiting for the beck and nod
Of its power as law and God.

Fraud exults, while solemn words
Sanctify his stolen hoards;
Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips
Bless his manacles and whips.

Not on them the poor rely,
Not to them looks liberty,
Who with fawning falsehood cower
To the wrong, when clothed with power.

O, to see them meanly cling,
Round the master, round the king,
Sported with, and sold and bought,
Pitifuller sight is not !

Tell me not that this must be :
God's true priest is always free ;
Free, the needed truth to speak,
Right the wronged, and raise the weak.

Golden streets for idle knave,
Sabbath rest for weary slave !

Not for words and works like these,
Priest of God, thy mission is;
But to make earth's desert glad,
In its Eden greenness clad ;

And to level manhood bring
Lord and peasant, serf and king;
And the Christ of God to find
In the humblest of thy kind!

Thine to work as well as pray,
Clearing thorny wrongs away;
Plucking up the weeds of sin,
Letting heaven's warm sunshine in, -

Watching on the hills of Faith;
Listening what the spirit saith,
Of the dim-seen light afar,
Growing like a nearing star.

God's interpreter art thou,
To the waiting ones below;
"Twixt them and its light midway
Heralding the better day,

Catching gleams of temple spires, Hearing notes of angel choirs, Where, as yet unseen of them, Comes the New Jerusalem !

Like the seer of Patmos gazing, On the glory downward blazing; Till upon Earth's grateful sod Rests the City of our God!

77

THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.

SUGGESTED BY A DAGUERREOTYPE FROM A FRENCH ENGRAVING.

BEAMS of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten,

As she stands before her lover, with raised face to look and listen.

Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song:

Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful beauty wrong.

He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's garb and hue,