At last he builded a perfect faith, Fenced round about with The Lord thus saith;

To himself he fitted the doorway's size, Meted the light to the need of his eyes, And knew, by a sure and inward sign, That the work of his fingers was divine.

Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die

The eternal death who believe not as 1";

And some were boiled, some burned in fire,

Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire,

For the good of men's souls, might be satisfied,

By the drawing of all to the righteous side.

One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth

In his louely walk, he saw a youth
Resting himself in the shade of a tree;
It had never been given him to see
So shining a face, and the good man
thought

'T were pity he should not believe as he ought.

So he set himself by the young man's side,

And the state of his soul with questions tried ;

But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed,

Nor received the stamp of the one true creed,

And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find

Such face the porch of so narrow a mind.

"As each beholds in cloud and fire The shape that answers his own desire, So each," said the youth, "in the Law shall find

The figure and features of his mind; And to each in his mercy hath God allowed

His several pillar of fire and cloud."

The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal And holy wrath for the young man's weal :

"Believest thou then, most wretched youth,"

Cried he, "a dividual essence in Truth? I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin

To take the Lord in his glory in."

Now there bubbled beside them where they stood

A fountain of waters sweet and good; The youth to the streamlet's brink drew

near

Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!"

Six vases of crystal then he took, And set them along the edge of the brook.

"As into these vessels the water I pour, There shall one hold less, another more, And the water unchanged, in every case,

Shall put on the figure of the vase; O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife,

Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?

When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone,

The youth and the stream and the vases were gone;

But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace,

He had talked with an angel face to face,

And felt his heart change inwardly,
As he fell on his knees beneath the tree.

ABOVE AND BELOW.

I.

O DWELLERS in the valley-land,
Who in deep twilight grope and

cower,

Till the slow mountain's dial-hand Shortens to noon's triumphal hour,— While ye sit idle, do ye think

The Lord's great work sits idle too? That light dare not o'erleap the brink Of morn, because 't is dark with you?

Though yet your valleys skulk in night,

In God's ripe fields the day is cried, And reapers, with their sickles bright, Troop, singing, down the mountainside:

Come up, and feel what health there is In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, As, bending with a pitying kiss,

The night-shed tears of Earth she dries !

The Lord wants reapers: O, mount up, Before night comes, and says,-" Too late!"

Stay not for taking scrip or cup,

The Master hungers while ye wait; 'Tis from these heights alone your eyes The advancing spears of day can see, Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, To break your long captivity.

II.

Lone watcher on the mountain-height!
It is right precious to behold
The first long surf of climbing light
Flood all the thirsty east with gold;
But we, who in the shadow sit,

Know also when the day is nigh,
Seeing thy shining forehead lit
With his inspiring prophecy.

Thou hast thine office; we have ours;
God lacks not early service here,
But what are thine eleventh hours
He counts with us for morning
cheer;

Our day, for Him, is long enough,
And when he giveth work to do,
The bruised reed is amply tough
To pierce the shield of error through.

But not the less do thou aspire

Light's earlier messages to preach ; Keep back no syllable of fire, — Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech.

God deems not thine aeried sight

More worthy than our twilight dim,

For meek Obedience, too, is Light, And following that is finding Him.

THE CAPTIVE.

IT was past the hour of trysting,
But she lingered for him still;
Like a child, the eager streamlet
Leaped and laughed adown the hill,
Happy to be free at twilight

From its toiling at the mill.

Then the great moon on a sudden
Ominous, and red as blood,
Startling as a new creation,

O'er the eastern hill-top stood,
Casting deep and deeper shadows
Through the mystery of the wood.

Dread closed huge and vague about her,

And her thoughts turned fearfully To her heart, if there some shelter From the silence there might be, Like bare cedars leaning inland

From the blighting of the sea.

Yet he came not, and the stillness

Dampened round her like a tomb; She could feel cold eyes of spirits

Looking on her through the gloom, She could hear the groping footsteps Of some blind, gigantic doom.

Suddenly the silence wavered

Like a light mist in the wind,
For a voice broke gently through it,
Felt like sunshine by the blind,
And the dread, like mist in sunshine,
Furled serenely from her mind.

"Once my love, my love forever, -
Flesh or spirit still the same;
If I missed the hour of trysting,
Do not think my faith to blame,
I, alas, was made a captive,

As from Holy Land I came.

"On a green spot in the desert,

Gleaming like an emerald star,

Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, Yearning for its mate afar, Droops above a silver runnel, Slender as a scimitar, —

"There thou 'lt find the humble postern
To the castle of my foe;
If thy love burn clear and faithful,
Strike the gateway, green and low,
Ask to enter, and the warder
Surely will not say thee no."

Slept again the aspen silence,
But her loneliness was o'er;
Round her heart a motherly patience
Wrapt its arms forevermore;
From her soul ebbed back the sorrow,
Leaving smooth the golden shore.

Donned she now the pilgrim scallop,
Took the pilgrim staff in hand;
Like a cloud-shade, flitting eastward,
Wandered she o'er sea and land;
And her footsteps in the desert

Fell like cool rain on the sand.

Forward leaped she o'er the threshold,
Eager as a glancing surf;

Fell from her the spirit's languor,
Fell from her the body's scurf;-
'Neath the palm next day some Arabs
Found a corpse upon the turf.

THE BIRCH-TREE.

RIPPLING through thy branches goes the sunshine,

Among thy leaves that palpitate for

ever;

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned,

The soul once of some tremulous inland river,

Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah! dumb, dumb forever!

While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine, Holds up its leaves in happy, happy silence,

Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended,

I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands,

And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung silence.

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet,

Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, Dripping about thy slim white stem, whose shadow

Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet,

Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge would some startled Dryad.

Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers; Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping;

Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience,

And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping

Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping.

Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, So frankly coy, so full of trembly confi dences.

Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaflets

Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er my senses,

And Nature gives me all her summer confidences.

Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble,

Thou sympathizest still; wild and unquiet,

I fling me down; thy ripple, like river, Flows valleyward, where calmness is, and by it

My heart is floated down into the land of quiet.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES

STANDISH.

I SAT one evening in my room,

In that sweet hour of twilight When blended thoughts, half light, half gloom,

Throng through the spirit's skylight; The flames by fits curled round the bars, Or up the chimney crinkled, While embers dropped like falling stars, And in the ashes tinkled.

I sat and mused; the fire burned low,
And, o'er my senses stealing,
Crept something of the ruddy glow
That bloomed on wall and ceiling;
My pictures (they are very few, —

The heads of ancient wise men) Smoothed down their knotted fronts, and grew

As rosy as excisemen.

My antique high-backed Spanish chair
Felt thrills through wood and leather,
That had been strangers since whilere,
'Mid Andalusian heather,
The oak that made its sturdy frame
His happy arms stretched over
The ox whose fortunate hide became
The bottom's polished cover.

It came out in that famous bark
That brought our sires intrepid,

Capacious as another ark
For furniture decrepit;-

For, as that saved of bird and beast A pair for propagation,

So has the seed of these increased And furnished half the nation.

Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats:
But those slant precipices

Of ice the northern voyager meets
Less slippery are than this is:
To cling therein would pass the wit
Of royal man or woman,
And whatsoe'er can stay in it

Is more or less than human.

I offer to all bores this perch,
Dear well-intentioned people
With heads as void as week-day church.
Tongues longer than the steeple ;
To folks with missions, whose gaunt

eyes

See golden ages rising,
Salt of the earth! in what queer Guys
Thou 'rt fond of crystallizing!

My wonder, then, was not unmixed
With merciful suggestion,
When, as my roving eyes grew fixed
Upon the chair in question,

I saw its trembling arms enclose
A figure grim and rusty,
Whose doublet plain and plainer hose
Were something worn and dusty.

Now even such men as Nature forms
Merely to fill the street with,
Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms

Are serious things to meet with;
Your penitent spirits are no jokes,

And, though I'm not averse to
A quiet shade, even they are folks
One cares not to speak first to.

Who knows, thought I, but he has come,
By Charon kindly ferried,
To tell me of a mighty sum

Behind my wainscot buried?
There is a buccaneerish air

About that garb outlandish Just then the ghost drew up his chair And said, "My name is Standish.

"I come from Plymouth, deadly bored With toasts, and songs, and speeches, As long and flat as my old sword,

As threadbare as my breeches :

They understand us Pilgrims! they, Smooth men with rosy faces, Strength's knots and gnarls all pared

away,

And varnish in their places!

"We had some toughness in our grain,
The eye to rightly see us is
Not just the one that lights the brain
Of drawing-room Tyrtæuses:
They talk about their Pilgrim blood,
Their birthright high and holy !-
A mountain-stream that ends in mud
Methinks is melancholy.

"He had stiff knees, the Puritan,
That were not good at bending;
The homespun dignity of man

He thought was worth defending; He did not, with his pinchbeck ore, His country's shame forgotten, Gild Freedom's coffin o'er and o'er, When all within was rotten.

The sacred compromises-" "Now God confound the dastard word! My gall thereat arises: Northward it hath this sense alone,

That you, your conscience blinding, Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, When slavery feels like grinding.

""Tis shame to see such painted sticks
In Vane's and Winthrop's places,
To see your spirit of Seventy-six

Drag humbly in the traces,
With slavery's lash upon her back,
And herds of office-holders
To shout applause, as, with a crack,
It peels her patient shoulders.

"We forefathers to such a rout! -
No, by my faith in God's word!"

Half rose the ghost, and half drew out The ghost of his old broadsword, Then thrust it slowly back again, And said, with reverent gesture, "No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain

The hem of thy white vesture. "I feel the soul in me draw near

The mount of prophesying; In this bleak wilderness I hear A John the Baptist crying; Far in the east I see upleap

The streaks of first forewarning,
And they who sowed the light shall reap
The golden sheaves of morning.
"Child of our travail and our woe,
Light in our day of sorrow,
Through my rapt spirit I foreknow
The glory of thy morrow;

I hear great steps, that through the shade
Draw nigher still and nigher,
And voices call like that which bade
The prophet come up higher."

I looked, no form mine eyes could find,
I heard the red cock crowing,
And through my window-chinks the
wind

A dismal tune was blowing;
Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham
Hath somewhat in him gritty,
Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham,
And he will print my ditty.

ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON.

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

Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest;