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The matron whose sons are lying

In graves on a distant shore; The maiden, whose promised husband Comes back from the war no more?

I look on the peaceful dwellings Whose windows glimmer in sight, With croft and garden and orchard, That bask in the mellow light;

And I know that, when our couriers
With news of victory come,
They will bring a bitter message
Of hopeless grief to some.

Again I turn to the woodlands,
And shudder as I see
The mock-grape's blood-red banner
Hung out on the cedar-tree;

And I think of days of slaughter,

And the night-sky red with flames, On the Chattahoochee's meadows,

And the wasted banks of the James.

Oh, for the fresh spring-season,

When the groves are in their prime, And far away in the future

Is the frosty autumn-time!

Oh, for that better season,

When the pride of the foe shall yield, And the hosts of God and Freedom

March back from the well-won field;

And the matron shall clasp her first-born
With tears of joy and pride;
And the scarred and war-worn lover
Shall claim his promised bride !

The leaves are swept from the branches;
But the living buds are there,
With folded flower and foliage,

To sprout in a kinder air.

ROSLYN, October, 1864.

THE DEATH OF SLAVERY

O THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,

Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield

The scourge that drove the laborer to the field,

And turn a stony gaze on human tears,

Thy cruel reign is o'er;

Thy bondmen crouch no more In terror at the menace of thine eye; For He who marks the bounds of guilty power, Long-suffering, hath heard the captive's cry, And touched his shackles at the appointed hour,

And lo! they fall, and he whose limbs they galled

Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled.

A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent; Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks;

Our rivers roll exulting, and their banks Send up hosannas to the firmament ! Fields where the bondman's toil No more shall trench the soil, Seem now to bask in a serener day; The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs

Of heaven with more caressing softness play,

Welcoming man to liberty like theirs. A glory clothes the land from sea to sea, For the great land and all its coasts are free.

Within that land wert thou enthroned of late,

And they by whom the nation's laws were made,

And they who filled its judgment-seats,
obeyed

Thy mandate, rigid as the will of Fate.
Fierce men at thy right hand,
With gesture of command,
Gave forth the word that none might dare
gainsay;

And grave and reverend ones, who loved

thee not,

Shrank from thy presence, and in blank dismay

Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought;

While meaner cowards, mingling with thy

train,

Proved, from the book of God, thy right to reign.

Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to shore,

The wrath of Heaven o'ertook thee in thy pride;

Thou sitt'st a ghastly shadow; by thy side Thy once strong arms hang nerveless ever

more.

And they who quailed but now
Before thy lowering brow,

Devote thy memory to scorn and shame, And scoff at the pale, powerless thing thou art.

And they who ruled in thine imperial name,

Subdued, and standing sullenly apart, Scowl at the hands that overthrew thy reign, And shattered at a blow the prisoner's chain.

Well was thy doom deserved; thou didst not spare

Life's tenderest ties, but cruelly didst part

Husband and wife, and from the mother's heart

Didst wrest her children, deaf to shriek and prayer;

Thy inner lair became

The haunt of guilty shame;

Thy lash dropped blood; the murderer, at thy side,

Showed his red hands, nor feared the vengeance due.

Thou didst sow earth with crimes, and, far and wide,

A harvest of uncounted miseries grew, Until the measure of thy sins at last

Was full, and then the avenging bolt was cast!

Go now, accursed of God, and take thy place

With hateful memories of the elder time, With many a wasting plague, and nameless crime,

And bloody war that thinned the human race;

With the Black Death, whose way
Through wailing cities lay,

Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that built The Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taught

To avenge a fancied guilt by deeper guiltDeath at the stake to those that held

them not.

Lo! the foul phantoms, silent in the gloom Of the flown ages, part to yield thee room.

I see the better years that hasten by

Carry thee back into that shadowy past,

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Tosses and foams, and fills the air with

roar

Of mingled noises. There are they who toil,

And they who strive, and they who feast, and they

Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy swain Woodman and delver with the spade-is there,

And busy artisan beside his bench,

And pallid student with his written roll.
A moment on the mounting billow seen,
The flood sweeps over them and they are
gone.

There groups of revellers whose brows are twined

With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile, And as they raise their flowing cups and

touch

The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath

The waves and disappear. I hear the jar Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth

From cannon, where the advancing billow sends

Up to the sight long files of armëd men, That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke.

The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid,

Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam. Down go the steed and rider, the plumed chief

Sinks with his followers; the head that

wears

The imperial diadem goes down beside
The felon's with cropped ear and branded

cheek.

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A funeral-train - -the torrent sweeps away Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed Of one who dies men gather sorrowing, And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on; The wail is stifled and the sobbing group Borne under. Hark to that shrill, sudden shout,

The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields

The living mass as if he were its soul ! The waters choke the shout and all is still. Lo! next a kneeling crowd, and one who spreads The hands in prayer o'ertakes

the engulfing wave

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The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed,
A painter stands, and sunshine at his touch
Gathers upon his canvas, and life glows;
A poet, as he paces to and fro,

Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride

The advancing billow, till its tossing crest Strikes them and flings them under, while their tasks

Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile On her young babe that smiles to her again; The torrent wrests it from her arms; she shrieks

And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down.

A beam like that of moonlight turns the

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Unroofed, forsaken by the worshipper. There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed

The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned,

The broken altars of forgotten gods,
Foundations of old cities and long streets
Where never fall of human foot is heard,
On all the desolate pavement. I behold
Dim glimmerings of lost jewels, far within
The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx,
Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite,
Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows
That long ago were dust; and all around
Strewn on the surface of that silent sea
Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy
locks

Shorn from dear brows by loving hands,

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Around green islands with the breath
Of flowers that never wither. So they pass
From stage to stage along the shining course
Of that bright river, broadening like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way
They bring old friends together; hands are
clasped

In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms
Again are folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now,
Or but remembered to make sweet the
hour

That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled

Or broke are healed forever. In the room Of this grief-shadowed present, there shall be

A Present in whose reign no grief shall

gnaw

The heart, and never shall a tender tie
Be broken; in whose reign the eternal
Change

That waits on growth and action shall pro

ceed

With everlasting Concord hand in hand.

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