The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much.

guess,

Piling its thunder-heads and muttering "Cease!"

Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely chose

The seeming-desperate task whence our new nation rose.

AN ODE

FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876.

I. 1.

ENTRANCED I saw a vision in the cloud That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the eye,

Half chance-evoked by the wind's fantasy In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd: There, mid unreal forms that came and

went

In air-spun robes, of evanescent dye,
A woman's semblance shone pre-emi-

neut;

Not armed like Pallas, not like Hera proud,

But, as on household diligence intent, Beside her visionary wheel she bent Like Arete or Bertha, nor than they Less queenly in her port: about her knee

Glad children clustered confident in play: Placid her pose, the calm of energy; And over her broad brow in many a round

(That loosened would have gilt her garment's hem),

Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was wound

In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. The cloud changed shape, obsequious to the whim

Of some transmuting influence felt in

And turned with loftier brow and firmer

stride;

For in that spectral cloud-work I had

seen

Her image, bodied forth by love and pride,

The fearless, the benign, the mothereyed,

The fairer world's toil-consecrated queen.

2.

What shape by exile dreamed elates the mind

Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the poor,

No blood in vengeance spilt, though lawful, stains?

Who never turned a suppliant from her door?

Whose conquests are the gains of all mankind?

To-day her thanks shall fly on every wind,

Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to shore,

One love, one hope, and not a doubt behind!

Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, Banner to banner flap it forth in flame; Her children shall rise up to bless her

name,

And wish her harmless length of days, The mighty mother of a mighty brood, Blessed in all tongues and dear to every blood,

The beautiful, the strong, and, best of all, the good!

3.

Seven years long was the bow
Of battle bent, and the heightening
Storm-heaps convulsed with the throe
Of their uncontainable lightning ;
Seven years long heard the sea
Crash of navies and wave-borne thunder;
Then drifted the cloud-rack a-lee,
And new stars were seen, a world's
wonder;

Each by her sisters made bright,
All binding all to their stations,
Cluster of manifold light
Startling the old constellations :
Men looked up and grew pale:
Was it a comet or star,
Omen of blessing or bale,
Hung o'er the ocean afar?

4.

Stormy the day of her birth:
Was she not born of the strong,
She, the last ripeness of earth,
Beautiful, prophesied long?
Stormy the days of her prime:
Hers are the pulses that beat
Higher for perils sublime,
Making them fawn at her feet.
Was she not born of the strong?
Was she not born of the wise?
Daring and counsel belong
Of right to her confident eyes:
Human and motherly they,
Careless of station or race:
Hearken! her children to-day
Shout for the joy of her face.

silent prayer;

What architect hath bettered these? With softened eye the westward traveller

In guileless youth's diviner way;
Life sings not now, but prophesies;
Time's shadows they no more behold,
But, under them, the riddle old
Taat mocks, bewilders, and defies:
In childhood's face the seed of shame,
In the green tree an ambushed flame,
In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night,
They, though against their will, di-
vine,

And dread the care-dispelling wine
Stored from the Muse's vintage bright,
By age imbued with second-sight.
From Faith's own eyelids there peeps
out,

Even as they look, the leer of doubt;
The festal wreath their fancy loads
With care that whispers and forebodes :
Nor this our triumph-day can blunt
Megæra's goads.

2.

Murmur of many voices in the air
Denounces us degenerate,
Unfaithful guardians of a noble fate,
And prompts indifference or despair:
Is this the country that we dreamed in
youth,

Where wisdom and not numbers should
have weight,
Seed-field of simpler manners, braver
truth,

Where shams should cease to dominate
In household, church, and state?
Is this Atlantis? This the unpoisoned

soil, Sea-whelmed for ages and recovered late, Where parasitic greed no more should coil

Round Freedom's stem to bend awry and blight

What grew so fair, sole plant of love and light?

Who sit where once in crowned seclu.

sion sate

The long-proved athletes of debate Trained from their youth, as none thinks needful now?

Is this debating-club where boys dispute,

And wrangle o'er their stolen fruit, The Senate, erewhile cloister of the few,

Where Clay once flashed and Webster's cloudy brow

Brooded those bolts of thought that all the horizon knew?