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, Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, As on an altar, can it be that ye The people's heart is like a harp for years Hung where some petrifying torrent rains Its slow-incrusting spray: the stiffened chords Faint and more faint make answer to the Half turns her face, half smiles through | Leads all his shivering lambs to one sure golden hair, Forever yielding, never wholly won: That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace; Freedom gained yesterday is no more Intent on manna still and mortal ends, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, Each age, each kindred, adds a verse Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. BEAVER BROOK. The miller dreams not at what cost Nor how for every turn are tost But Summer cleared my happier eyes HUSHED with broad sunlight lies the Forevermore each form of use. When the roused popular ocean foamed France is too poor to pay alone and chafed, O poem unsurpassed! it ran The service of that ample spirit; Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, If balanced with thy simple merit. They had to thee been rust and loss; Thy aim was higher, -thou hast climbed a Cross! TO JOHN G. PALFREY. THERE are who triumph in a losing cause, Who can put on defeat, as 't were a wreath Unwithering in the adverse popular breath, Safe from the blasting demagogue's applause; 'Tis they who stand for Freedom and God's laws. And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell stood, Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed To trust the playful tiger's velvet paws: And if the second Charles brought in decay Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring Souls that had broadened 'neath a nobler day, To see a losel, marketable king Fearfully watering with his realm's best blood Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst had cracked and flamed, Scaring, through all their depths of courtier mud, Europe's crowned bloodsuckers, how more ashamed Ought we to be, who see Corruption's flood Still rise o'er last year's mark, to mine away Our brazen idols' feet of treacherous clay ! O utter degradation! Freedom turned Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and be tray To the old lecher's clutch a maiden prey, All round the world, unlocking man to If so a loathsome pander's fee be man. earned ! |