They did as they were taught; not theirs the blame,

If men who scattered firebrands reaped the flame:

They trampled Peace beneath their savage feet,

And by her golden tresses drew Mercy along the pavement of the street. O Freedom! Freedom! is thy morningdew

So gory red? Alas, thy light had ne'er

Shone in upon the chaos of their lair! They reared to thee such symbol as they knew,

And worshipped it with flame and blood,

A Vengeance, axe in hand, that stood Holding a tyrant's head up by the clotted hair.

link;

Coarse was the hand that scrawled, and red the ink;

Rude was their score, as suits unlettered

men,

Notched with a headsman's axe upon a block:

What marvel if, when came the avenging shock,

'T was Atë, not Urania, held the pen ?

IV

With eye averted, and an anguished frown, Loathingly glides the Muse through scenes of strife,

Where, like the heart of Vengeance up and down,

Throbs in its framework the blood

muffled knife;

Slow are the steps of Freedom, but her feet Turn never backward: hers no bloody

glare;

Her light is calm, and innocent, and sweet, And where it enters there is no despair: Not first on palace and cathedral spire Quivers and gleams that unconsuming fire; While these stand black against her

morning skies,

The peasant sees it leap from peak to peak Along his hills; the craftsman's burning

eyes

Own with cool tears its influence mothermeek;

It lights the poet's heart up like a star; Ah! while the tyrant deemed it still

afar,

And twined with golden threads his futile

snare,

That swift, convicting glow all round

him ran;

'T was close beside him there, Sunrise whose Memnon is the soul of man.

V

O Broker-King, is this thy wisdom's fruit? A dynasty plucked out as 't were a weed Grown rankly in a night, that leaves no

seed!

There I behold a Nation:

The France which lies
Between the Pyrenees and Rhine
Is the least part of France;

I see her rather in the soul whose shine Burns through the craftsman's grimy countenance,

In the new energy divine

Of Toil's enfranchised glance.

VIII

And if it be a dream,

If the great Future be the little Past 'Neath a new mask, which drops and shows at last

The same weird, mocking face to balk and blast,

Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the theme,

And the Tyrtæan harp

Loves notes more resolute and sharp, Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot and fast:

Such visions are of morning,

Theirs is no vague forewarning, The dreams which nations dream come true, And shape the world anew;

If this be a sleep,

Make it long, make it deep,

O Father, who sendest the harvests men reap!
While Labor so sleepeth,
His sorrow is gone,
No longer he weepeth,
But smileth and steepeth

His thoughts in the dawn;
He heareth Hope yonder

Rain, lark-like, her fancies,
His dreaming hands wander

Mid heart's-ease and pansies;
""T is a dream! 'T is a vision !"
Shrieks Mammon aghast;
"The day's broad derision
Will chase it at last;

Ye are mad, ye have taken
A slumbering kraken

For firm land of the Past!"
Ah! if he awaken,

God shield us all then,

If this dream rudely shaken
Shall cheat him again!

IX

Since first I heard our North-wind blow, Since first I saw Atlantic throw

On our grim rocks his thunderous 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

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,

child;

And surely never did thine altars glance With purer fires than now in France; While, in their clear 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

At the overpowering Good:

And down the happy future runs a flood

Of prophesying light;

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;

'T is 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.

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 ye dash the Law to pieces, shatter 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.

ODE

WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON

The public system of water works in Boston dates from October 25, 1848, when with much ceremony the water of Lake Cochituate, formerly called Long Pond, was turned into the reservoir which then occupied the site of the present extension of the State House, and a stream was conducted into the Frog Pond on Boston Common, where the pressure gave head to a fine jet. Besides the Ode, a selection was sung from the oratorio of Elijah, and addresses were made by the mayor and the chairman of the water commissioners.

And, bright as Noah saw it, yet

For you the arching rainbow glows, A sight in Paradise denied

To unfallen Adam and his bride.

When Winter held me in his grip,

You seized and sent me o'er the wave, Ungrateful! in a prison-ship;

But I forgive, not long a slave, For, soon as summer south-winds blew, Homeward I fled, disguised as dew.

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.