Let us kneel; God's own voice is in that peal, And this spot is holy ground. Lord forgive us! What are we, That our eyes this glory see, That our ears have heard the sound! For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad; In the earthquake He hath spoken; He has smitten with his thunder The iron wall asunder, And the gates of brass are broken! How they pale, Ancient myth, and song, and tale, In this wonder of our days, When the cruel rod of war Blossoms white with righteous law, And the wrath of man is praise ! Blotted out! All within and all about Shall a fresher life begin: Freer breathe the universe As it rolls its heavy curse On the dead and buried sin ! It is done! In the circuit of the sun Ring and swing, Bells of joy! on morning's wing Send the song of praise abroad; With a sound of broken chains Tell the nation that He reigns, Who alone is Lord and God! THE DEATH OF SLAVERY. 157 THE DEATH OF SLAVERY.-WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. O THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years, The scourge that drove the laborer to the field, Thy bondmen crouch no more In terror at the menace of thine eye; For He who marks the bounds of guilty power, And touched his shackles at the appointed hour, A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent; Fields, where the bondman's toil Seem now to bask in a serener day; The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs A glory clothes the land from sea to sea, For the great land and all its coasts are free. Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to shore, Before thy lowering brow Devote thy memory to scorn and shame, And scoff at the pale, powerless thing thou art. Go, then, accursed of God, and take thy place With many a wasting pest, and nameless crime, Through wailing cities lay, Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that built The Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taught I see the better years that hasten by, Thy victims pass no more, Is there, and there shall the grim block remain Molder and rust by thine eternal seat. There, mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes, THE ISSUES-BIGLOW PAPERS.-JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. It's war we're in, not politics; It's systems wrastlin' now, not parties; An' victory in the eend 'll fix Where longest will an' truest heart is. Ther's critters yit thet talk an' act They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract When they wuz madder than all Bashan THE ISSUES. Conciliate? it jest means be kicked, No metter how they phrase an' tone it; It means that we're to set down licked, Thet we're poor shotes an' glad to own it! More men? More man! It's there we fail; When it's the head in need o' strengthenin'? From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief In him an' us, ef earth went rockin'! Ole Hick'ry wouldn't ha' s'ood see-saw He'd smash the tables o' the Law In time o' need to load his gun with; He couldn't see but jest one side, Ef his, 'twuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty; An' so his "Forrards!" multiplied An army's fightin' weight by twenty. D'ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, Ole Hick'ry tried his head to sof'n Set the two forces foot to foot, An' every man knows who'll be winner, Thet goes down deeper than his dinner: 159 THE NORMANS.-F. P. TRACY, 1858, IN 1066, the Normans invaded England, and the battle of Hastings broke, forever, the Saxon and Danish power. But years passed, and several monarchs filled and vacated the English throne before these Norman pioneers had accomplished their work, and molded the nation to their will. They were warriors —not reformers. They were greedy of power, but impatient of its exercise upon themselves; greedy of wealth, but lavish in its expenditure. They were reckless alike of their own and the life of others. Turbulent, unruly-equally dangerous to the people whom they subdued, and to the princes who led them to conquest. Gallant men, full of deeds of knightly courtesy, yet reddening their hands with the blood of civil broil, and ever ready to maintain their right with their swords. Men of clear intellect and giant will, they acknowledged an uncertain allegiance to their king, and only bowed their necks to the yoke of God, when at the close of life they deemed it necessary to assume the monastic habit, or to do penance of their goods for the salvation of their souls. From these stern and bloody men, "who came in with the Conqueror," or followed in the train of his successors, the noblest families of England are proud to derive their descent; and even we republicans, upon this distant coast, and at this late period of time, do not refuse our admiration to these Norman pioneers, who, through the mists of the past, loom up like giants before us. Yet our admiration of these old warriors, the admiration of the world for them, is not because they shed blood, or amassed or squandered wealth, or swore fealty to their kings, or broke their oaths in rebellion, or committed or abstained from the crimes that were common to their age. The Norman pioneers are enrolled in history among the most illustrious of men, because in the dark and troublous times in which they lived, in the midst of confusion and blood, with strong hands and undaunted hearts, they laid deep the first foundations of English liberty, and became the fathers of that system of common law which, at the end of eight hundred years, is the protection and the glory of all who speak the English tongue. We forget the details of the battle of Hastings, and of an hundred other battles that followed it. We do not remember what castles were sub |