HOWARD AT ATLANTA.

RIGHT in the track where Sherman
Ploughed his red furrow,
Out of the narrow cabin,

Up from the cellar's burrow,
Gathered the little black people,
With freedom newly dowered,
Where, beside their Northern teacher,
Stood the soldier, Howard.
He listened and heard the children
Of the poor and long-enslavéd
Reading the words of Jesus,
Singing the songs of David.
Behold! - the dumb lips speaking,
The blind eyes seeing!
Bones of the Prophet's vision
Warmed into being!

Transformed he saw them passing
Their new life's portal;
Almost it seemed the mortal

Put on the immortal.

No more with the beasts of burden,
No more with stone and clod,
But crowned with glory and honor
In the image of God!

There was the human chattel

Its manhood taking;

There, in each dark, bronze statue,
A soul was waking!

The man of many battles,

With tears his eyelids pressing, Stretched over those dusky foreheads His one-armed blessing.

And he said: "Who hears can never
Fear for or doubt you;
What shall I tell the children
?"

Up North about you
Then ran round a whisper, a murmur,
Some answer devising;
And a little boy stood up
Tell 'em we 're rising!"

O black boy of Atlanta !

But half was spoken:

"Massa,

The slave's chain and the master's Alike are broken.

The one curse of the races

Held both in tether: They are rising, — all are rising, The black and white together!

What cheer hath he? How is it with him?

Where lingers he this weary while? Over what pleasant fields of Heaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile?

Does he not know our feet are treading The earth hard down on Slavery's grave?

That, in our crowning exultations,

We miss the charm his presence gave?

Why on this spring air comes no whisper

From him to tell us all is well? Why to our flower-time comes no token Of lily and of asphodel?

I feel the unutterable longing,

Thy hunger of the heart is mine;
I reach and grope for hands in darkness,
My ear grows sharp for voice or sign.

Still on the lips of all we question
The finger of God's silence lies;
Will the lost hands in ours be folded?
Will the shut eyelids ever rise?

Alone she left the witten scroll,
The legend of a troubled soul,
Pray for me!

Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin!

435

Thou leav'st a common need within; Each bears, like thee, some nameless weight,

Some misery inarticulate,
Some secret sin, some shrouded dread,
Some household sorrow all unsaid.
Pray for us!

Pass on! The type of all thou art,
Sad witness to the common heart!
With face in veil and seal on lip,
In mute and strange companionship,
Like thee we wander to and fro,
Dumbly imploring as we go:
Pray for us!

Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads
Our want perchance hath greater

needs?

Yet they who make their loss the gain
Of others shall not ask in vain,
And Heaven bends low to hear the

prayer

Of love from lips of self-despair:
Pray for us!

In vain remorse and fear and hate
Beat with bruised hands against a fate,
Whose walls of iron only move,
And open to the touch of love.
He only feels his burdens fall
Who, taught by suffering, pities all.
Pray for us!

He prayeth best who leaves unguessed
The mystery of another's breast.
Why cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'er-
flow,

Or heads are white, thou need'st not know.

Enough to note by many a sign
That every heart hath needs like thine.
Pray for us!

A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTA

TION

AT THE PRESIDENT'S LEVEE, BROWN UNIVERSITY, 29TH 6TH MONTH, 1870.

TO-DAY the plant by Williams set

Its summer bloom discloses ; The wilding sweet-brier of his prayer Is crowned with cultured roses.

Once more the Island State repeats
The lesson that he taught her,
And binds his pearl of charity
Upon her brown-locked daughter.

Is 't fancy that he watches still

His Providence plantations?
That still the careful Founder takes
A part on these occasions?

Methinks I see that reverend form,

Which all of us so well know: He rises up to speak; he jogs

The presidential elbow.

"Good friends," he says, "you reap a field

I sowed in self-denial,

For toleration had its griefs
And charity its trial.

"Great grace, as saith Sir Thomas More,

To him must needs be given
Who heareth heresy and leaves
The heretic to Heaven!

"I hear again the snuffled tones,
I see in dreary vision
Dyspeptic dreamers, spiritual bores,
And prophets with a mission.

"Each zealot thrust before my eyes

His Scripture-garbled label; All creeds were shouted in my ears As with the tongues of Babel.

'Scourged at one cart-tail, each denied The hope of every other;

Each marty shook his branded fist
At the conscience of his brother!

"How cleft the dreary drone of man The shriller pipe of woman, As Gorton led his saints elect,

Who held all things in common !

"Their gay robes trailed in ditch and swamp,

And torn by thorn and thicket, The dancing-girls of Merry Mount Came draggling to my wicket. "Shrill Anabaptists, shorn of ears: Gray witch-wives, hobbling slowly; And Antinomians, free of law, Whose very sins were holy.

"Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Monarchists,

Of stripes and bondage braggarts, Pale Churchmen, with singed rubrics snatched

From Puritanic fagots.

"And last, not least, the Quakers came. With tongues still sore from burning, The Bay State's dust from off their fees Before my threshold spurning;

"A motley host, the Lord's débris, Faith's odds and ends together; Well might I shrink from guests with lungs

Tough as their breeches leather:

"If, when the hangman at their heels Came, rope in hand to catch them, I took the hunted outcasts in,

I never sent to fetch them.

"I fed, but spared them not a whit;
I gave to all who walked in,
Not clams an succotash alone,
But stronger meat of doctrine.

"THE LAURELS."

AT THE TWENTIETH AND LAST ANNIVERSARY.

FROM these wild rocks I look to-day O'er leagues of dancing waves, and

see

The far, low coast-line stretch away
To where our river meets the sea.
The light wind blowing off the land

Is burdened with old voices; through Shut eyes I see how lip and hand

The greeting of old days renew.

O friends whose hearts still keep their prime,

Whose bright example warms and
cheers,

Ye teach us how to smile at Time,
And set to music all his years!

I thank you for sweet summer days, For pleasant memories lingering long,

For joyful meetings, fond delays,

And ties of friendship woven strong. As for the last time, side by side,

You tread the paths familiar grown, I reach across the severing tide,

And blend my farewells with your

own.

Make room, O river of our home!
For other feet in place of ours,
And in the summers yet to come,

Make glad another Feast of Flowers! Hold in thy mirror, calm and deep,

The pleasant pictures thou hast seen; Forget thy lovers not, but keep

Our memory like thy laurels green. ISLES OF SHOALS, 7th mo., 1870.

HYMN

FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCI-
PATION AT NEWBURYPORT.

NOT unto us who did but seek
The word that burned within to speak,
Not unto us this day belong
The triumph and exultant song.
Upon us fell in early youth

The burden of unwelcome truth,

And left us, weak and frail and few, The censor's painful work to do. Thenceforth our life a fight became, The air we breathed was hot with blame;

For not with gauged and softened tone We made the bondman's cause our

own.

We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn, The private hate, the public scorn; Yet held through all the paths we trod Our faith in man and trust in God.

We prayed and hoped; but still, with

awe,

The coming of the sword we saw;
We heard the nearing steps of doom,
We saw the shade of things to come.

In grief which they alone can feel
Who from a mother's wrong appeal,
With blended lines of fear and hope
We cast our country's horoscope.

For still within her house of life
We marked the lurid sign of strife,
And, poisoning and imbittering all,
We saw the star of Wormwood fall.

Deep as our love for her became
Our hate of all that wrought her shame,
And if, thereby, with tongue and pen
We erred, - we were but mortal men.

We hoped for peace; our eyes survey
The blood-red dawn of Freedom's