Revile him not-the Tempter hath
A snare for all!
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall.
Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age
Falls back in night.
Scorn! would the angels laugh to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven?
Let not the land, once proud of him,
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim
Dishonored brow.
But, let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, nought
Save power remains-
A fallen angel's pride of thought
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Then pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
Maud Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
porting the "Compromise Measures" (including the "Fugitive Slave Law''), in his speech delivered in the U. S. Senate, on the 7th of March, 1850.
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast-
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid;
And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge, 66 a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry, and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay:
“No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters proud and cold,
And his mother vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain: "Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care, and sorrow, and childbirth pain
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow-lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been !"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.-MATTHEW vii. 12.
Bearer of Freedom's holy light,
Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,
The foe of all which pains the sight,
Or wounds the generous ear of God!
The generous feeling, pure and warm,
Which owns the rights of all divine-
The pitying heart-the helping arm-
The prompt self-sacrifice-are thine.
Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,
How fade the lines of cast and birth!
How equal in their suffering lie
The groaning multitudes of earth!
Still to a stricken brother true,
Whatever clime hath nurtured him ;
As stooped to heal the wounded Jew
The worshipper of Gerizim.
By misery unrepelled, unawed
By pomp or power, thou see'st a MAN
In prince or peasant-slave or lord-
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.
Through all disguise, form, place or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.
On man, as man, retaining yet,
Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,
The crown upon his forehead set-
The immortal gift of God to him.
And there is reverence in thy look;
For that frail form which mortals wear
The Spirit of the Holiest took,
And veiled His perfect brightness there.
Thy name and watchword o'er this land
I hear in every breeze that stirs,
And round a thousand altars stand
Thy banded Party worshippers.
Not to these altars of a day,
At Party's call, my gift I bring; But on thy olden shrine I lay
A freeman's dearest offering;
The voiceless utterance of his will-
His pledge to Freedom and to Truth,
That manhood's heart remembers still
The homage of its generous youth.
I ask not now for gold to gild
With mocking shine a weary frame;
The yearning of the mind is stilled-
I ask not now for Fame.
A rose-cloud, dimly seen above,
Melting in heaven's blue depths away-
O sweet, fond dream of human Love!
For thee I may not pray.
But, bowed in lowliness of mind,
I make my humble wishes known
I only ask a will resigned,
O Father, to thine own!
To-day, beneath thy chastening eye,
I crave alone for peace and rest,
Submissive in thy hand to lie,
And feel that it is best.
A marvel seems the Universe,
A miracle our Life and Death; A mystery which I cannot pierce, Around, above, beneath.
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