I saw its trembling arms enclose A mountain-stream that ends in mud Methinks is melancholy. Were something worn and dusty. He had stiff knees, the Puritan, That were not good at bending; Now even such men as Nature The homespun dignity of man forms Merely to fill the street with, 91 He thought was worth defending; Once turned to ghosts by hungry He did not, with his pinchbeck LOOK on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or with ease Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these! I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone Are we pledged to craven silence? Oh, fling it to the wind, Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first; We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more, He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is done, To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun, That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart, With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart: When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay State's iron shore, The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more. Out from the land of bondage 't is decreed our slaves shall go, If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore, 'Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win TO THE DANDELION DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer. blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem Not in mid June the golden- More sacredly of every human cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam In the white lily's breezy tent, Of heaven, and could some won His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted Shapes upon the dark without 20 (For the soul their scent is keen,) Want and Sin, and Sin is last, They have followed far and fast; When birds and flowers and I Want gave tongue, and, at her ears |