Earth wearies of them; and the long Meek sufferance of the Heavens doth fail; Woe for weak tyrants, when the strong Wake, struggle, and prevail ! Not vainly Roman hearts have bled To feed the Crozier and the Crown, If, roused thereby, the world shall tread The twin-born vampires down! ELLIOTT.51 HANDS off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play No trick of priestcraft here! Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, He knew the locust swarm that cursed On these pale lips, the smothered thought Which England's millions feel, A fierce and fearful splendor caught, As from his forge the steel. Strong-armed as Thor,-a shower of fire His smitten anvil flung; God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire, He gave them all a tongue! Then let the poor man's horny hands And labor's swart and stalwart bands Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds, Leave rank its minster floor; Give England's green and daisied grounds The poet of the poor! Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge With fitting dirge from sounding forge, THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS. There let the peasant's step be heard, No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh For him whose words were bread, The Runic rhyme and spell whereby The foodless poor were fed ! Pile up thy tombs of rank and pride, O England, as thou wilt ! No part or lot in these we claim; A fallen angel's pride of thought, Still strong in chains. 179 All else is gone; from those great eyes When faith is lost, when honor dies, Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame; Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide the shame! THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS.5% No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest Goaded from shore to shore ; No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest, The leaves of empire o'er. Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts The love of man and God, Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts, And Scythia's steppes, they trod. Where the long shadows of the fir and pine In the night sun are cast, And the deep heart of many a Norland mine Quakes at each riving blast; Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands, A baptized Scythian queen, With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands, The North and East between ! Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray The classic forms of yore, And Beauty smiles, new risen from the spray, And Dian weeps once more; Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds; And Stamboul from the sea Lifts her tall minarets over burial THE PEACE CONVENTION AT Brussels. "MAN IS WORTH MORE THAN TEM PLES!" he replied To such as came his holy work to chide. And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare, And coining from the Abbey's golden hoard The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer Or threat of those whose fierce zeal for the Lord Stifled their love of man,-" An earthen dish The last sad supper of the Master bore: Most miserable sinners! do ye wish More than your Lord, and grudge his dying poor What your own pride and not his need requires? Souls, than these shining gauds, He values more ; Mercy, not sacrifice, his heart desires!" O faithful worthies! resting far behind In your dark ages, since ye fell asleep, Much has been done for truth and human-kind, Shadows are scattered wherein ye groped blind; Man claims his birthright, freer pulses leap Through peoples driven in your day like sheep; Yet, like your own, our age's sphere of light, Though widening still, is walled around by night; With slow, reluctant eye, the Church has read, Sceptic at heart, the lessons of its Head; Counting, too oft, its living members less Than the wall's garnish and the pulpit's dress; World-moving zeal, with power to bless and feed Life's fainting pilgrims, to their utter need, Instead of bread, holds out the stone of creed; Sect builds and worships where its wealth and pride And vanity stand shrined and deified, 181 Careless that in the shadow of its walls Saints true of life, and martyrs strong of will, To tread the land, even now, as Xavier trod The streets of Goa, barefoot, with his bell, Proclaiming freedom in the name of God, And startling tyrants with the fear of hell! Soft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless well; But to rebuke the age's popular crime, We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old time ! THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS. STILL in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain ; Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through, And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew, When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread, At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fed The yawning trenches with her noble dead; Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls, And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's side, The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride : Still in that vale where Himalaya's snow Melts round the cornfields and the vines below, The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball, Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered wall; On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain, And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again. "What folly, then," the faithless critic cries, With sneering lip, and wise, worldknowing eyes, "While fort to fort, and post to post, repeat The ceaseless challenge of the wardrum's beat, And round the green earth, to the church-bell's chime, The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time, Todream of peace amidst a world in arms, Of swords to ploughshares changed by Scriptural charms, Of nations, drunken with the wine of blood, Staggering to take the Pledge of Brotherhood, Like tipplers answering Father Mathew's call, The sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap Gaul, The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with life, The Yankee swaggering with his bowieknife, The Russ, from banquets with the vulture shared, The blood still dripping from his amber beard, Quitting their mad Berserker dance to hear The dull, meek droning of a drab-coat Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons o'er Timed to the pauses of the battery's roar ; Check Ban or Kaiser with the barricade Of "Olive-leaves" and Resolutions made, Spike guns with pointed Scripture-texts, and hope To capsize navies with a windy trope: Still shall the glory and the pomp of War Along their train the shouting millions draw; Still dusty Labor to the passing Brave His cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave; Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song. Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong; Rosy and sleek, the sable - gowned divine, O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine, To plumed and sworded auditors, shall prove Their trade accordant with the Law of Love; And Church for State, and State for Church, shall fight, And both agree, that Might alone is Right!" Despite of sneers like these, O faithful few, Who dare to hold God's word and witness true, Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time, And o'er the present wilderness of crime, Sees the calm future, with its robes of |