XIV. ON READING WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, With the majestic beating of his heart, The mighty tides, whereof its rightful part Each sea-wide bay and little weed receiveth, So, through his soul who earnestly believeth, Life from the universal Heart doth flow, Whereby some conquest of the eternal Woe, By instinct of God's nature, he achieveth: A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beauty Into the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide, And he more keenly feels the glorious duty Of serving Truth, despised and crucified, Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest, And feel God flow forever through his breast. And over it with fuller glory flows By inward sympathy, shall all be won : This thou shouldst know, who, from the painted feature Of shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren turn Unto the love of ever-youthful Nature, And of a beauty fadeless and eterne; And always 't is the saddest sight to see An old man faithless in Humanity. XVII. THE SAME CONTINUED. A POET cannot strive for despotism; His harp falls shattered; for it still must be The instinct of great spirits to be free, And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism: He who has deepest searched the wide abysm Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate Than truth and love is the true atheism: Upward the soul forever turns her eyes: The next hour always shames the hour before; One beauty, at its highest, prophesies That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less, But widens to the boundless Perfectness. While she in glorious madness doth fore cast That perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blown To each new Prophet, and yet always opes Fuller and fuller with each day and hour, Heartening the soul with odor of fresh hopes, And longings high, and gushings of wide power, Yet never is or shall be fully blown XIX. THE SAME CONCLUded. FAR 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should look Into the Endless Promise, nor should brook One prying doubt to shake his faith sublime; To him the earth is ever in her prime And dewiness of morning; he can see Good lying hid, from all eternity, Within the teeming womb of sin and crime; His soul should not be cramped by any bar, His nobleness should be so Godlike high, That his least deed is perfect as a star, His common look majestic as the sky, And all o'erflooded with a light from far, Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality. Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe | Save there the rain in dreamy clouds of blame, Sower of flowers in the dusty mart, part If we but keep it spotless as it came. doth stay, As loath to fall out of those happy skies; Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May, That comes with steady sun when April dies. XXIII. WENDELL PHILLIPS. HE stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes: Many there were who made great haste and sold Unto the cunning enemy their swords, He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, And, underneath their soft and flowery words, Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went And humbly joined him to the weaker part, Fanatic named, and fool, yet well con They tell us that our land was made for | To preach and practise before all the song, world, With its huge rivers and sky-piercing The freedom and divinity of man, The glorious claims of human brotherhood, peaks, Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies wide, And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes extinct. But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods; Her womb and cradle are the human heart, And she can find a nobler theme for song In the most loathsome man that blasts the sight Than in the broad expanse of sea and shore Between the frozen deserts of the poles. All nations have their message from on high, Each the messiah of some central thought, For the fulfilment and delight of Man: One has to teach that labor is divine; Another Freedom; and another Mind; And all, that God is open-eyed and just, The happy centre and calm heart of all. Are, then, our woods, our mountains, and our streams, Needful to teach our poets how to sing? O maiden rare, far other thoughts were ours, When we have sat by ocean's foaming marge, And watched the waves leap roaring on the rocks, Than young Leander and his Hero had, Gazing from Sestos to the other shore. The moon looks down and ocean worships her, Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go Even as they did in Homer's elder time, But we behold them not with Grecian eyes: Then they were types of beauty and of strength, But now of freedom, unconfined and pure, Subject alone to Order's higher law. What cares the Russian serf or Southern slave Though we should speak as man spake never yet Of gleaming Hudson's broad magnifi cence, Or green Niagara's never-ending roar? Our country hath a gospel of her own Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should, Gains the sole wealth that will not fly |