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 will;

And blessed are the horny hands of toil!
The busy world shoves angrily aside
The man who stands with arms akimbo
set,

Until occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task marked out

Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds:

Reason and Government, like two broad

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

ances,

The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin strives

To weary out the tethered hope of Faith, The sneers, the unrecognizing look of friends,

Who worship the dead corpse of old king Custom,

Where it doth lie in state within the Church,

Striving to cover up the mighty ocean 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 farther 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

come,

When I see this, spite of my faith in God,

I marvel how their hearts bear up so long;

A man not second among those who lived

To show us that the poet's lyre demands An arm of tougher sinew than the sword.

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 yourselves

May not be left deserted in your need."

Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam stood,

Far from the other dwellings of their tribe;

And, after many moons, the loneliness Wearied the elder brother, and he said, "Why should I dwell here all alone,

66

shut out

Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet Have seen the danger which I dared not look

Full in the face; what hinders me to be A mighty Brave and Chief among my kin?"

So, taking up his arrows and his bow,
As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on,
Until he gained the wigwams of his
tribe,

Where, choosing out a bride, he soon forgot,

In all the fret and bustle of new life, The little Sheemah and his father's charge.

Now when the sister found her brother gone,

that, for many days, he came not back,

And

She

wept for Sheemah more than for herself;

Whatever paltry warmth and light are left,

With avaricious greed, from all beside. So, for long months, the sister hunted wide,

And cared for little Sheemah tenderly; But, daily more and more, the loneliness Grew wearisome, and to herself she sighed,

"Am I not fair? at least the glassy pool, That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so; But, O, how flat and meaningless the tale, Unless it tremble on a lover's tongue! Beauty hath no true glass, except it be In the sweet privacy of loving eyes.' Thus deemed she idly, and forgot the

lore

Which she had learned of nature and the

woods,

That beauty's chief reward is to itself, And that the eyes of Love reflect alone The inward fairness, which is blurred and lost

Unless kept clear and white by Duty's

care.

So she went forth and sought the haunts of men,

And, being wedded, in her household

cares,

Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot The little Sheemah and her father's charge.

But Sheemah, left alone within the lodge,

Waited and waited, with a shrinking heart,

Thinking each rustle was his sister's step, Till hope grew less and less, and then went out,

And every sound was changed from hope

to fear.

Few sounds there were:-the dropping of a nut,

The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's harsh scream,

Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Summer's cheer,

Heard at long intervals, seemed but to make

The dreadful void of silence silenter. Soon what small store his sister left was gone,

And, through the Autumn, he made shift to live

On roots and berries, gathered in much fear

Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard ofttimes,

Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night. But Winter came at last, and, when the

snow,

Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er hill and plain,

Spread its unbroken silence over all, Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean

(More sick at heart than Ruth, and all alone)

After the harvest of the merciless wolf, Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, yet feared

A thing more wild and starving than himself;

Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends,

And shared together all the winter through.

Late in the Spring, when all the ice was gone,

The elder brother, fishing in the lake, Upon whose edge his father's wigwam stood,

Heard a low moaning noise upon the shore:

Half like a child it seemed, half like a wolf,

And straightway there was something in his heart

That said, "It is thy brother Sheemah's voice."

So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw,
Within a little thicket close at hand,
A child that seemed fast changing to a
wolf,

From the neck downward, gray with shaggy hair,

That still crept on and upward as he looked.

The face was turned away, but well he knew

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

And, looking upward fearfully, he saw Only a wolf that shrank away and ran,

stern,

Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes short, and, falling

Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rustling down

The broad backs of the waves, which jostle and crowd

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,
If ye hear, without a blush,

Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains,
Answer! are ye fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free?

Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt? No! true freedom is to share

All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

COLUMBUS.

THE cordage creaks and rattles in the wind,

With whims of sudden hush; the reeling sea

shore,