TO THE FUTURE. O LAND of Promise! from what Pisgah's height Its deeps on deeps of glory, that unfold And blazing precipices, Whence but a scanty leap it seems to heaven, Of thy more gorgeous realm, thy more unstinted blisses. O Land of Quiet! to thy shore the surf Of thine exulting vision, Out of its very cares woos charms for peace and slumber. To thee the Earth lifts up her fettered hands And cries for vengeance; with a pitying smile Thou blessest her, and she forgets her bands, And her old woe-worn face a little while Grows young and noble; unto thee the Oppressor Looks, and is dumb with awe; The eternal law, Which makes the crime its own blindfold redresser, Its silent-footed steeds toward his palace goading. What promises hast thou for Poets' eyes, It throbs and leaps; The noble 'neath foul rags beholds his long-lost brother. To thee the Martyr looketh, and his fires Unlock their fangs and leave his spirit free; To thee the Poet 'mid his toil aspires, And grief and hunger climb about his knee, Welcome as children; thou upholdest The lone Inventor by his demon haunted; The Prophet cries to thee when hearts are coldest, And, gazing o'er the midnight's bleak abyss, Sees the drowsed soul awaken at thy kiss, And stretch its happy arms and leap up disenchanted. Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving-kindly Fierce tyrants drop the scourges wherewith blindly Their own souls they were scarring; conquerors see With horror in their hands the accursed spear That tore the meek One's side on Calvary, And from their trophies shrink with ghastly fear; Thou, too, art the Forgiver, The beauty of man's soul to man revealing; Pierce Error's guilty heart, but only pierce for healing. O, whither, whither, glory-winged dreams, Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden gleams,— A charm against the present sorrow The ancestral buckler calls, In the high temple of the soul; Where are most sorrows, there the poet's sphere is, To feed the soul with patience, To heal its desolations With words of unshorn truth, with love that never wearies. HEBE. I SAW the twinkle of white feet, As, in bare fields, the searching bees Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp The Earth has drunk the vintage up; What boots it patch the goblet's splinters? Can Summer fill the icy cup, Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's ? O spendthrift, haste! await the Gods; Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, THE SEARCH. I WENT to seek for Christ, That first the woods and fields my youth enticed, And to the solitude Allegiance paid; but Winter came and shook Back to the world I turned, So the cramped alley and the hut I spurned, Prizing it more than Christ's own living heart. So from my feet the dust Of the proud World I shook; |