Help came but slowly; surely no man yet

Put lever to the heavy world with less :

What need of help? He knew how types were set,

He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, round which systems grow!

Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,

And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born

In the rude stable, in the manger

nursed!

What humble hands unbar those gates

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,

Based on a faithful heart and weari

less brain!

Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,

Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.

ON THE DEATH OF C. T. TORREY.

WOE worth the hour when it is crime To plead the poor dumb bondman's

cause,

The poet's clearer eye should see, in all Earth's seeming woe, the seed of Heaven's flowers.

Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep

Of everlasting Soul her strength abides,

From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap,

Through Nature's veins her strength, undying, tides.

Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness,

Where force were vain, makes con

quest 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 deathstrewn 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 dun

And lives unwithered in its sinewy

youth,

When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;

The better part of thee is with us stil!;

Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,

And only freer wrestles with the Ill. 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 scar 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,

And clothe the Right with lustre more

divine.

The prodigal soul from want and sorro home,

And Eden ope her gates to Adam' seed.

Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand

Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too;

Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand,

Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue:

When that day comes, O, may this hand grow cold,

Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right;

O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold

To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier;

Let worthier hands than these thy

wreath intwine;

Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,

For us weep rather thou in calm divine !

"FOR this true nobleness I seek in vain, In woman and in man I find it not; I almost weary of my earthly lot, My life-springs are dried up with burning pain."

Thou find'st it not? I pray thee look again,

Look inward through the depths of thine own soul.

How is it with thee? Art thou sound and whole?

Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain ?

BE NOBLE! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never

dead,

Will rise in majesty to meet thine

own;

Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes,

Then will pure light around thy path be shed,

And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone

1840

V.

TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS.

GREAT soul, thou sittest with me in my

room,

Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies

The twilight warmth of ruddy embergloom :

Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom

Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom:

Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops,

Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully,

Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might,

Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light,

Shall track the eternal chords of Des