The dreadful void of silence silenter. Soon what small store his sister left was gone,

And, through the Autumn, he made shift to live

On roots and berries, gathered in much fear

Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard ofttimes,

Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night.

But Winter came at last, and, when the snow,

Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er hill and plain,

Spread its unbroken silence over all, Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean

(More sick at heart than Ruth, and all alone)

After the harvest of the merciless wolf, Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, yet feared

A thing more wild and starving than himself:

Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends,

And shared together all the winter through.

Dost thou not know me, that I am thy brother?

Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shalt dwell

With me henceforth, and know no care or want!"

Sheemah was silent for a space, as if 'T were hard to summon up a human voice,

And, when he spake, tne sound was of a wolf's:

"I know thee not, nor art thou what thou say'st;

I have none other brethren than the wolves,

And, till thy heart be changed from what it is,

Thou art not worthy to be called their kin."

Then groaned the other, with a choking tongue,

Alas! my heart is changed right bit. terly;

'Tis shrunk and parched within me even now!""

And, looking upward fearfully, he saw Only a wolf that shrank away and ran, Ugly and fierce, to hide among the

woods.

STANZAS ON FREEDOM. MEN whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not feel the chain, When it works a brother's pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed? Women! who shall one day bear Sons to breathe New England air,

If ye near, without a blush,

Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains,
Answer! are ye fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free?

Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

COLUMBUS.

THE Cordage creeks and rattles in the wind,

With freaks of sudden hush; the reeling sea

Now thumps like solid rock beneath the stern,

Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes short, and, falling

Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rustling down

The broad backs of the waves, which jostle and crowd

To fting themselves upon that unknown shore,

Their used familiar since the dawn of time,

Whither this foredoomed life is guided

on

To sway on triumph's hushed, aspiring poise

One glittering moment, then to break fulfilled.

How lonely is the sea's perpetual swing, The melancholy wash of endless waves,

The sigh of some grim monster undes

cried,

Fear-painted on the canvas of the dark, Shifting on his uneasy pillow of brine! Yet night brings more companions than the day

To this drear waste; new constellations burn,

And fairer stars, with whose calm height my soul

Finds nearer sympathy than with my herd

Of earthen souls, whose vision's scanty ring

Makes me its prisoner to beat my wings Against the cold bars of their unbelief, Knowing in vain my own free heaven beyond.

O God! this world, so crammed with eager life,

That comes and goes and wanders back to silence

Like the idle wind, which yet man's shaping mind

Can make his drudge to swell the longing sails

Of highest endeavor,

thrift world,

this mad, un

Which, every hour, throws life enough

They are, even in the flush of victory, weak,

Conquering that manhood which should them subdue.

And what gift bring I to this untried world?

Shall the same tragedy be played anew, And the same lurid curtain drop at last On one dread desolation, one fierce crash Of that recoil which on its makers God Lets Ignorance and Sin and Hunger make,

Early or late? Or shall that commonwealth

Whose potent unity and concentric force Can draw these scattered joints and parts of men

Into a whole ideal man once more, Which sucks not from its limbs the life