Brave Luther answered YES; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled; No! said one man in Genoa, and that No Who is it will not dare himself to trust? Who is it hath not strength to stand alone? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST? He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown. Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here! By bravery's simple gravitation drawn! Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, We stride the river daily at its spring, O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, ON THE DEATH OF C. T. TORREY. WOE worth the hour when it is crime To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, The glorious throbs that conquer time, Are traitors to our cruel laws! He strove among God's suffering poor O Mother State! when this was done, The stranger's charity—a grave. Must it be thus forever? No! The hand of God sows not in vain ; Although our brother lie asleep, Man's heart still struggles, still aspires; His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires. When hours like this the senses' gush The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, That bring the vengeance and the doom;— Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. I Do not come to weep above thy pall, Earth's seeming woe, the seed of Heaven's flowers. Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er the wave; And love lives on and hath a power to bless, When they who loved are hidden in the grave. The sculptured marble brags of death-strewn fields, And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood; But Alexander now to Plato yields, Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood. I watch the circle of the eternal years, And read forever in the storied page One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears, One onward step of Truth from age to age. The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain; The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates; Man's hope lies quenched; and, lo! with steadfast gain Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates. Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last. No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth, Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die; Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly. And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere And strength, to perfect what it dreamed of here |