The invisible Spirit whose first breath | Throbbing. as throbs the bosom, hot divine and fast: Such visions are of morning, The dreams which nations dream come true, And shape the world anew; Make it long, make it deep, O Father, who sendest the harvests men reap ! While Labor so sleepeth His thoughts in the dawn; 'Mid heart's-ease and pansies; For firm land of the Past!" God shield us all then, IX. Since first I heard our North wind blow, Since first I saw Atlantic throw snow, I loved thee, Freedom; as a boy The rattle of thy shield at Marathon Did with a Grecian joy Through all my pulses run; But I have learned to love thee now Without the helm upon thy gleaming brow, A maiden mild and undefiled Like her who bore the world's redeem. ing child; And surely never did thy altars glance With purer fires than now in France; While, in their bright white flashes, Wrong's shadow, backward cast, Waves cowering o'er the ashes Of the dead, blaspheming Past, O'er the shapes of fallen giants, His own unburied brood, Whose dead hands clench defiance It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood, Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud Of Brotherhood and Right. ANTI-APIS. PRAISEST Law, friend? We, too, love it much as they that love it best ; "Tis the deep, august foundation, whereon Peace and Justice rest; On the rock primeval, hidden in the Past its bases be, Block by block the endeavoring Ages built it up to what we see. But dig down: the Old unbury; thou shalt find on every stone That each Age hath carved the symbol of what god to them was known. Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but the fairest that they knew; If their sight were dim and earthward, yet their hope and aim were true. Surely as the unconscious needle feels the far-off loadstar draw, So strives every gracious nature to at-one itself with law; And the elder Saints and Sages laid their pious framework right By a theocratic instinct covered from the people's sight. As their gods were, so their laws were ; Thor the strong could reave and steal, So through many a peaceful inlet tore the Norseman's eager keel; But a new law came when Christ came, and not blameless, as before, Lan we, paying him our lip-tithes, give our lives and faiths to Thor. Law is holy ay, but what law? Is there nothing more divine Than the patched-up broils of Congress, venal, full of meat and wine? Is there, say you, nothing higher? Naught, God save us! that transcends Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar men for vulgar ends? Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or submit to them a plan, Ere he filled with loves, hopes, longings, this aspiring heart of man? For their edict does the soul wait, ere it swing round to the pole Of the true, the free, the God-willed, all that makes it be a soul? Law is holy; but not your law, ye who keep the tablets whole While dash the Law to pieces, shatye ter it in life and soul; Bearing up the Ark is lightsome, golden Apis hid within, While we Levites share the offerings, richer by the people's sin. Give to Cæsar what is Cæsar's? yes, but tell me, if you can, Is this superscription Cæsar's here upon our brother man? Is not here some other's image, dark and sullied though it be, In this fellow-soul that worships, struggles Godward even as we? It was not to such a future that the Mayflower's prow was turned; Not to such a faith the martyrs clung, exulting as they burned; Not by such laws are men fashioned, earnest, simple, valiant, great In the household virtues whereon rests the unconquerable state. Ah! there is a higher gospel, overhead the God-roof springs, And each glad, obedient planet like a golden shuttle sings Through the web which Time is weav ing in his never-resting loom, Weaving seasons many-colored, bring. ing prophecy to doom. And in palace-chambers lofty and. 31 They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare. Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him ; And in church, and palace, and judg ment-hall, He saw his image high over all. But still, wherever his steps they led, The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundation stones, The son of Mary heard bitter groans. And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall, He marked great fissures that rent the wall, And opened wider and yet more wide As the living foundation heaved and sighed. "Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor? "With gates of silver and bars of gold Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold; I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years." "O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built; Behold thine images, how they stand. Sovereign and sole, through all our land. 'Our task is hard, - with sword and flame To hold thy earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep.' Then Christ sought out an artisan, These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garmenthem, For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, "The images ye have made of me!" ODE WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON. My name is Water: I have sped Through strange, dark ways, untried before, By pure desire of friendship led, I'm Ceres' cup-bearer; I pour, For flowers and fruits and all their kin, Her crystal vintage, from of yore Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, Flora's Falernian ripe, since God The wine-press of the deluge trod. In that far isle whence, iron-willed, The New World's sires their bark unmoored, The fairies' acorn-cups I filled Upon the toadstool's silver board, And, 'neath Herne's oak, for Shakespeare's sight, Strewed moss and grass with diamonds bright. No fairies in the Mayflower came, And, lightsome as I sparkle here, For Mother Bay State, busy dame, I've toiled and drudged this many a A sight in Paradise denied When Winter held me in his grip, But I forgive, not long a slave, For countless services I 'm fit, Of use, of pleasure, and of gain, But lightly from all bonds I flit, Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain; From mill and wash-tub I escape, And take in heaven my proper shape. So, free myself, to-day, elate I come from far o'er hill and mead, And here, Cochituate's envoy, wait To be your blithesome Ganymede, And brim your cups with nectar true That never will make slaves of you. LINES SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD BATTLE-GROUND. THE same good blood that now refills The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, The same whose vigor westward thrills, Bursting Nevada's silver chains, Poured here upon the April grass, Freckled with red the herbage new ; On reeled the battle's trampling mass, Back to the ash the bluebird flew. Poured here in vain;-that sturdy blood Was meant to make the earth more green, But in a higher, gentler mood These men were brave enough, and true To the hired soldier's bull-dog creed; What brought them here they never knew, They fought as suits the English breed; They came three thousand miles, and died, To keep the Past upon its throne; The turf that covers them no thrill But go, whose Bay State bosom stirs, Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, run World-wide from that short April fray? What then? With heart and hand they wrought, According to their village light; Their graves have voices; if they threw Dice charged with fates beyond their ken, Yet to their instincts they were true, When all our good sees bond in sheaves, And we stand reaped and bare. Our seasons have no fixed returns, But each day brings less summer cheer As less the olden glow abides, And less the chillier heart aspires, With drift-wood beached in past springtides We light our sullen fires. By the pinched rushlight's starving beam We cower and strain our wasted sight, To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by seam, In the long arctic night. It was not so we once were youngWhen Spring, to womanly Summer turning, Her dew-drops on each grass-blade strung, In the red sunrise burning. We trusted then, aspired, believed That earth could be remade to-mor row: Ah, why be ever undeceived? O thou, whose days are yet all spring, WE, too, have autumns, when our leaves Drop loosely through the dampened air, FREEDOM. ARE we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, |