It is hardly to be credited, yet is true, that in the anxiety of the Northern merchant to conciliate his Southern customer, a publisher was found ready thus to mutilate Scheffer's picture. He intended his edition for use in the Southern States undoubtedly, but copies fell into the hands of those who believed literally in a gospel which was to preach liberty to the captive.
O ARY SCHEFFER! when beneath thine eye, Touched with the light that cometh from above, Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love, No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would tear Therefrom the token of His equal care, And make thy symbol of His truth a lie The poor, dumb slave whose shackles fall away In His compassionate gaze, grubbed smoothly out, To mar no more the exercise devout Of sleek oppression kneeling down to pray Where the great oriel stains the Sabbath day!
Let whoso can before such praying-books Kneel on his velvet cushion; I, for one, Would sooner bow, a Parsee, to the sun, Or tend a prayer-wheel in Thibetar brooks, Or beat a drum on Yedo's temple-floor.
No falser idol man has bowed before, In Indian groves or islands of the sea, Than that which through the quaint-carved Gothic door Looks forth,--a Church without humanity!
Patron of pride, and prejudice, and wrong,-- The rich man's charm and fetich of the strong, The Eternal Fulness meted, clipped, and shorn, The seamless robe of equal mercy torn, The dear Christ hidden from His kindred flesh, And, in His poor ones, crucified afresh!
Better the simple Lama scattering wide, Where sweeps the storm Alechan's steppes along, His paper horses for the lost to ride, And wearying Buddha with his prayers to make The figures living for the traveller's sake, Than he who hopes with cheap praise to beguile The ear of God, dishonoring man the while; Who dreams the pearl gate's hinges, rusty grown, Are moved by flattery's oil of tongue alone; That in the scale Eternal Justice bears The generous deed weighs less than selfish prayers, And words intoned with graceful unction move The Eternal Goodness more than lives of truth and love.
Alas, the Church! The reverend head of Jay, Enhaloed with its saintly silvered hair, Adorns no more the places of her prayer; And brave young Tyng, too early called away, Troubles the Haman of her courts no more Like the just Hebrew at the Assyrian's door; And her sweet ritual, beautiful but dead As the dry husk from which the grain is shed, And holy hymns from which the life devout Of saints and martyrs has wellnigh gone out, Like candles dying in exhausted air, For Sabbath use in measured grists are ground; And, ever while the spiritual mill goes round, Between the upper and the nether stones, Unseen, unheard, the wretched bondman groans, And urges his vain plea, prayer-smothered, anthem-drowned!
O heart of mine, keep patience! Looking forth, As from the Mount of Vision, I behold, Pure, just, and free, the Church of Christ on earth; The martyr's dream, the golden age foretold!
And found, at last, the mystic Graal I see, Brimmed with His blessing, pass from lip to lip In sacred pledge of human fellowship; And over all the songs of angels hear; Songs of the love that casteth out all fear; Songs of the Gospel of Humanity!
Lo! in the midst, with the same look He wore, Healing and blessing on Genesaret's shore, Folding together, with the all-tender might Of His great love, the dark bands and the white, Stands the Consoler, soothing every pain, Making all burdens light, and breaking every chain.
1859.
THE SUMMONS.
MY ear is full of summer sounds, Of summer sights my languid eye; Beyond the dusty village bounds I loiter in my daily rounds, And in the noon-time shadows lie.
I hear the wild bee wind his horn, The bird swings on the ripened wheat, The long green lances of the corn Are tilting in the winds of morn, The locust shrills his song of heat.
Another sound my spirit hears, A deeper sound that drowns them all; A voice of pleading choked with tears, The call of human hopes and fears, The Macedonian cry to Paul!
The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; I know the word and countersign; Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes, Where stand or fall her friends or foes, I know the place that should be mine.
Shamed be the hands that idly fold, And lips that woo the reed's accord, When laggard Time the hour has tolled For true with false and new with old To fight the battles of the Lord!
O brothers! blest by partial Fate With power to match the will and deed, To him your summons comes too late Who sinks beneath his armor's weight, And has no answer but God-speed!
1860.
TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
On the 12th of January, 1861, Mr. Seward delivered in the Senate chamber a speech on The State of the Union, in which he urged the paramount duty of preserving the Union, and went as far as it was possible to go, without surrender of principles, in concessions to the Southern party, concluding his argument with these words: "Having submitted my own opinions on this great crisis, it remains only to say, that I shall cheerfully lend to the government my best support in whatever prudent yet energetic efforts it shall make to preserve the public peace, and to maintain and preserve the Union; advising, only, that it practise, as far as possible, the utmost moderation, forbearance, and conciliation.
"This Union has not yet accomplished what good for mankind was manifestly designed by Him who appoints the seasons and prescribes the duties of states and empires. No; if it were cast down by faction to-day, it would rise again and re-appear in all its majestic proportions to-morrow. It is the only government that can stand here. Woe! woe! to the man that madly lifts his hand against it. It shall continue and endure; and men, in after times, shall declare that this generation, which saved the Union from such sudden and unlooked-for dangers, surpassed in magnanimity even that one which laid its foundations in the eternal principles of liberty, justice, and humanity."
STATESMAN, I thank thee! and, if yet dissent Mingles, reluctant, with my large content, I cannot censure what was nobly meant.
But, while constrained to hold even Union less Than Liberty and Truth and Righteousness, I thank thee in the sweet and holy name Of peace, for wise calm words that put to shame Passion and party. Courage may be shown Not in defiance of the wrong alone; He may be bravest who, unweaponed, bears The olive branch, and, strong in justice, spares The rash wrong-doer, giving widest scope, To Christian charity and generous hope.
If, without damage to the sacred cause Of Freedom and the safeguard of its laws-- If, without yielding that for which alone We prize the Union, thou canst save it now From a baptism of blood, upon thy brow A wreath whose flowers no earthly soil have known; Woven of the beatitudes, shall rest, And the peacemaker be forever blest!
1861.
IN WAR TIME.
TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWAll, OF MELROSE.
These lines to my old friends stood as dedication in the volume which contained a collection of pieces under the general title of In War Time.
The group belonging distinctly under that title I have retained here; the other pieces in the volume are distributed among the appropriate divisions.
OLOR ISCANUS queries: "Why should we Vex at the land's ridiculous miserie?"
So on his Usk banks, in the blood-red dawn Of England's civil strife, did careless Vaughan Bemock his times. O friends of many years!
Though faith and trust are stronger than our fears, And the signs promise peace with liberty, Not thus we trifle with our country's tears And sweat of agony. The future's gain Is certain as God's truth; but, meanwhile, pain Is bitter and tears are salt: our voices take A sober tone; our very household songs Are heavy with a nation's griefs and wrongs; And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat, The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet!
1863
THY WILL BE DONE.
WE see not, know not; all our way Is night,--with Thee alone is day From out the torrent's troubled drift, Above the storm our prayers we lift, Thy will be done!
The flesh may fail, the heart may faint, But who are we to make complaint, Or dare to plead, in times like these, The weakness of our love of ease?
Thy will be done!
We take with solemn thankfulness Our burden up, nor ask it less, And count it joy that even we May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee, Whose will be done!
Though dim as yet in tint and line, We trace Thy picture's wise design, And thank Thee that our age supplies Its dark relief of sacrifice.
Thy will be done!
And if, in our unworthiness, Thy sacrificial wine we press; If from Thy ordeal's heated bars Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, Thy will be done!
If, for the age to come, this hour Of trial hath vicarious power, And, blest by Thee, our present pain, Be Liberty's eternal gain, Thy will be done!
Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys, The anthem of the destinies!
The minor of Thy loftier strain, Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain, Thy will be done!
1861.
A WORD FOR THE HOUR.
THE firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap On one hand into fratricidal fight, Or, on the other, yield eternal right, Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound?
What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage-ground Our feet are planted: let us there remain In unrevengeful calm, no means untried Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied, The sad spectators of a suicide!
They break the links of Union: shall we light The fires of hell to weld anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
Draw we not even now a freer breath, As from our shoulders falls a load of death Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore When keen with life to a dead horror bound?