THY WILL BE DONE.

WE see not, know not; all our way
Is night, -with Thee alone is day:
From out the torrent's troubled drift,
Above the storm our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done!

The flesh may fail, the heart
may faint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease?
Thy will be done!

We take with solemn thankfulness
Our burden up, nor ask it less,
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee,
Whose will be done!

Though dim as yet in tint and line,
We trace Thy picture's wise design,
And thank Thee that our age supplies
Its dark relief of sacrifice.

Thy will be done!

And if, in our unworthiness,
Thy sacrificial wine we press;
If from Thy ordeal's heated bars

Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!

If, for the age to come, this hour
Of trial hath vicarious power,
And, blest by Thee, our present pain,
Be Liberty's eternal gain,

Thy will be done!

Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies !
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,
Thy will be done!

What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage-ground

Our feet are planted: let us there remain In unrevengeful calm, no means untried

Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,

The sad spectators of a suicide! They break the links of Union: shall we light

The fires of hell to weld anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain?

Draw we not even now a freer breath, As from our shoulders falls a load of death

Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore

When keen with life to a dead horror bound?

Why take we up the accursed thing again?

(LUTHER'S HYMN.)

WE wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs of transformation;
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared

Its bloody rain is dropping;

The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.

East, West, South, North,

It curses the earth;

All justice dies,

And fraud and lies

Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of

steel?

What points the rebel cannon? What sets the roaring rabble's heel On the old star-spangled pennon? What breaks the oath

Of the men o' the South? What whets the knife For the Union's life? Hark to the answer: Slavery ! Then waste no blows on lesser foes In strife unworthy freemen.

God lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demon !
O North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,

"Let slavery die!"

And union find in freedom?

What though the cast-out spirit tear The nation in his going?

We who have shared the guilt must share

The pang of his o'erthrowing!
Whate'er the loss,
Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of present pain

Who trust in God's hereafter?

For who that leans on His right arm
Was ever yet forsaken ?
What righteous cause can suffer harm
If He its part has taken?
Though wild and loud
And dark the cloud,
Behind its folds

His hand upholds

The calm sky of to-morrow!

Above the maddening cry for blood,
Above the wild war-drumming,

Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good

The evil overcoming.
Give prayer and purse
To stay the Curse

Whose wrong we share,
Whose shame we bear,

Whose end shall gladden Heaven!

In vain the bells of war shall ring
Of triumphs and revenges,
While still is spared the evil thing
That severs and estranges.
But blest the ear
That yet shall hear
The jubilant bell
That rings the knell
Of Slavery forever!

Then let the selfish lip be dumb,

And hushed the breath of sighing; Before the joy of peace must come The pains of purifying.

A lane for freedom through the level spears,

Still take thou courage ! God has spoken through thee, Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free! The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear

Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear.

Who would recall them now must first arrest

The winds that blow down from the free Northwest,

Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back

The Mississippi to its upper springs. Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack

But the full time to harden into things.

THE WATCHERS.

BESIDE a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

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Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain, But all the air was quick with pain And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head And folded wings and noiseless tread, Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland And lips of blessing, not command, Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other's brows were scarred and knit,

His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

"How long!"-I knew the voice of Peace,

"Is there no respite?-no release? — When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

"O Lord, how long!-One human soul

Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.

"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?

How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?

"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me."

Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun No strife nor pang beneath the sun, When human rights are staked and won.

"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock, I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock, I walked with Sidney to the block.

"The moor of Marston felt my tread, Through Jersey snows the march I led, My voice Magenta's charges sped.