And we are silent, we who daily, O for a whiff of Naseby, that would tread A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' sweep, With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff From the Lord's threshing-floor! Yet more than half The victory is attained, when one or two, Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, Beside thy sepulchre can bide the What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell, ON THE DEATH OF C. T. TORREY. Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and WOE worth the hour when it is crime scorn her frown? Brave Luther answered YES; that thun der's swell To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, Rocked Europe, and discharmed the The glorious throbs that conquer time, triple crown. Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled; No! said one man in Genoa, and that No Out of the darkness summoned this New World. Who is it will not dare himself to trust? Who is it hath not strength to stand alone? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST? Are traitors to our cruel laws! He and his works, like sand, from Must it be thus forever? No! earth are blown. The hand of God sows not in vain ; Long sleeps the darkling seed below, The seasons come, and change, and go, And all the fields are deep with grain. Although our brother lie asleep, Man's heart still struggles, still aspires; His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires. When hours like this the senses' gush Have stilled, and left the spirit room, It hears amid the eternal hush The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, That bring the vengeance and the doom ; Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends What rivets man to man apart,— God doth not so bring round his ends, But waits the ripened time, and sends His mercy to the oppressor's heart. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. I Do not come to weep above thy pall, powers; The poet's clearer eye should see, in all | And lives unwithered in its blithesome Earth's seeming woe, seed of immor tal flowers. youth, The prodigal soul from want and sorrow | Thou knowest how much a gentle soul home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed. Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too; Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue: When that day comes, O, may this hand grow cold, Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight! This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath intwine; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,For us weep rather thou in calin divine ! 1842. TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD. ANOTHER star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped, What mournful words are these! "Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, O Love Divine, that claspest our tired If thou wouldst learn how truly great earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, was he, Go, ask it of the poor." |