Like fragile bubbles yonder in the stream,

Than in a cycle of New England sloth,
Broke only by some petty Indian war,
Or quarrel for a letter more or less
In some hard word, which, spelt in
either way,

Not their most learned clerks can understand.

New times demand new measures and new men;

The world advances, and in time outgrows

The laws that in our fathers' day were best;

And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme

Will be shaped out by wiser men than we,

Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.

We cannot bring Utopia by force;
But better, almost, be at work in sin,
Than in a brute inaction browse and
sleep.

No man is born into the world, whose work

Is not born with him; there is always work,

And tools to work withal, for those who

The goodly framework of a fairer state: The builder's trowel and the settler's axe Are seldom wielded by the selfsame hand;

Ours is the harder task, yet not the less Shall we receive the blessing for our toil From the choice spirits of the aftertime. My soul is not a palace of the past, Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate, quake,

Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse,

That shakes old systems with a thunderfit.

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change;

Then let it come: I have no dread of what

Is called for by the instinct of mankind : Nor think I that God's world will fall apart

Because we tear a parchment more or less.

Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change is fitted to the hour;

Her mirror is turned forward to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. He who would win the name of truly

great

Must understand his own age and the next,

And make the present ready to fulfil Its prophecy, and with the future merge Gently and peacefully, as wave with

wave.

The future works out great men's destinies;

The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age

Are petrified forever: better those Who lead the blind old giant by the hand From out the pathless desert where he gropes,

And set him onward in his darksome

way.

I do not fear to follow out the truth,
Albeit along the precipice's edge.
Let us speak plain: there is more force
in names

With a man's palm, and making even the truth

Lie for them, holding up the glass reversed,

To make the hope of man seem further off?

My God! when I read o'er the bitter lives

Of men whose eager hearts were quite too great

To beat beneath the cramped mode of the day,

And see them mocked at by the world they love,

Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths

Of that reform which their hard toil will make

The common birthright of the age to

pen

I knew not; but some conquest I would have,

Or else swift death: now wiser grown in years,

I find youth's dreams are but the flutterings

Of those strong winds whereon the soul shall soar

In aftertime to win a starry throne; And so I cherish them, for they were lots, Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of Fate. Now will I draw them, since a man's right hand,

A right hand guided by an earnest soul, With a true instinct, takes the golden prize

From out a thousand blanks. What men call luck

The happy hunting-grounds await me, green

With change of spring and summer through the year:

But, for remembrance, after I am gone, Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake: Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet

To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow;

Therefore of both your loves he hath more need,

And he, who needeth love, to love hath right;

It is not like our furs and stores of corn, Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, But the Great Spirit plants it in our hearts,

And waters it, and gives it sun, to be The common stock and heritage of all: Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that

That it was Sheemah's, even his brother's face.

Then with his trembling hands he hid his eyes,

And bowed his head, so that he might

not see

The first look of his brother's eyes, and cried,

"O Sheemah! O my brother, speak

to me!

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, the 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,