The Church, beneath her trembling dome, Essayed in vain her ghostly charm Wealth shook within his gilded home With strange alarm.
Fraud from his secret chambers fled Before the sunlight bursting in Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head To drown the din.
"Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;"
Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, Cried out, "Forbear!"
Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, Groped for his old accustomed stone, Leaned on his staff, and wept to find His seat o'erthrown.
Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, O'erhung with paly locks of gold,-- "Why smite," he asked in sad surprise, "The fair, the old?"
Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke, Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam; Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, As from a dream.
I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled, The Waster seemed the Builder too; Upspringing from the ruined Old I saw the New.
'T was but the ruin of the bad,-- The wasting of the wrong and ill; Whate'er of good the old time had Was living still.
Calm grew the brows of him I feared; The frown which awed me passed away, And left behind a smile which cheered Like breaking day.
The grain grew green on battle-plains, O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow; The slave stood forging from his chains The spade and plough.
Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay And cottage windows, flower-entwined, Looked out upon the peaceful bay And hills behind.
Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red, The lights on brimming crystal fell, Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head And mossy well.
Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope, Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed, And with the idle gallows-rope The young child played.
Where the doomed victim in his cell Had counted o'er the weary hours, Glad school-girls, answering to the bell, Came crowned with flowers.
Grown wiser for the lesson given, I fear no longer, for I know That, where the share is deepest driven, The best fruits grow.
The outworn rite, the old abuse, The pious fraud transparent grown, The good held captive in the use Of wrong alone,--
These wait their doom, from that great law Which makes the past time serve to-day; And fresher life the world shall draw From their decay.
Oh, backward-looking son of time!
The new is old, the old is new, The cycle of a change sublime Still sweeping through.
So wisely taught the Indian seer; Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same.
Idly as thou, in that old day Thou mournest, did thy sire repine; So, in his time, thy child grown gray Shall sigh for thine.
But life shall on and upward go; Th' eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats.
Take heart! the Waster builds again, A charmed life old Goodness bath; The tares may perish, but the grain Is not for death.
God works in all things; all obey His first propulsion from the night Wake thou and watch! the world is gray With morning light!
1848.
THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS.
STILL in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain; Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through, And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew, When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread, At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fed The yawning trenches with her noble dead; Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls, And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's side, The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride; Still in that vale where Himalaya's snow Melts round the cornfields and the vines below, The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball, Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered wall; On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain, And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again.
"What folly, then," the faithless critic cries, With sneering lip, and wise world-knowing eyes, "While fort to fort, and post to post, repeat The ceaseless challenge of the war-drum's beat, And round the green earth, to the church-bell's chime, The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time, To dream of peace amidst a world in arms, Of swords to ploughshares changed by Scriptural charms, Of nations, drunken with the wine of blood, Staggering to take the Pledge of Brotherhood, Like tipplers answering Father Matthew's call; The sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap Gaul, The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with life, The Yankee swaggering with his bowie-knife, The Russ, from banquets with the vulture shared, The blood still dripping from his amber beard, Quitting their mad Berserker dance to hear The dull, meek droning of a drab-coat seer; Leaving the sport of Presidents and Kings, Where men for dice each titled gambler flings, To meet alternate on the Seine and Thames, For tea and gossip, like old country dames No! let the cravens plead the weakling's cant, Let Cobden cipher, and let Vincent rant, Let Sturge preach peace to democratic throngs, And Burritt, stammering through his hundred tongues, Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons o'er, Timed to the pauses of the battery's roar; Check Ban or Kaiser with the barricade Of "Olive-leaves" and Resolutions made, Spike guns with pointed Scripture-texts, and hope To capsize navies with a windy trope; Still shall the glory and the pomp of War Along their train the shouting millions draw; Still dusty Labor to the passing Brave His cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave; Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song, Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong; Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned divine, O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine, To plumed and sworded auditors, shall prove Their trade accordant with the Law of Love; And Church for State, and State for Church, shall fight, And both agree, that "Might alone is Right!"
Despite of sneers like these, O faithful few, Who dare to hold God's word and witness true, Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time, And o'er the present wilderness of crime Sees the calm future, with its robes of green, Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft streams between,-- Still keep the path which duty bids ye tread, Though worldly wisdom shake the cautious head; No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere, Without the greeting of the skeptic's sneer; Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall, Common as dew and sunshine, over all."
Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the strife shall cease, Like Morven's harpers, sing your song of peace; As in old fable rang the Thracian's lyre, Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal fire, Till the fierce din to pleasing murmurs fell, And love subdued the maddened heart of hell.
Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue, Which the glad angels of the Advent sung, Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour's birth, Glory to God, and peace unto the earth Through the mad discord send that calming word Which wind and wave on wild Genesareth heard, Lift in Christ's name his Cross against the Sword!
Not vain the vision which the prophets saw, Skirting with green the fiery waste of war, Through the hot sand-gleam, looming soft and calm On the sky's rim, the fountain-shading palm.
Still lives for Earth, which fiends so long have trod, The great hope resting on the truth of God,-- Evil shall cease and Violence pass away, And the tired world breathe free through a long Sabbath day.
11th mo., 1848.
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
Before the law authorizing imprisonment for debt had been abolished in Massachusetts, a revolutionary pensioner was confined in Charlestown jail for a debt of fourteen dollars, and on the fourth of July was seen waving a handkerchief from the bars of his cell in honor of the day.
Look on him! through his dungeon grate, Feebly and cold, the morning light Comes stealing round him, dim and late, As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed, His hand upholds his drooping head; His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard, Unshorn his gray, neglected beard; And o'er his bony fingers flow His long, dishevelled locks of snow.
No grateful fire before him glows, And yet the winter's breath is chill; And o'er his half-clad person goes The frequent ague thrill!
Silent, save ever and anon, A sound, half murmur and half groan, Forces apart the painful grip Of the old sufferer's bearded lip; Oh, sad and crushing is the fate Of old age chained and desolate!
Just God! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison bed, Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair, Gleam on him, fierce and red; And the rude oath and heartless jeer Fall ever on his loathing ear, And, or in wakefulness or sleep, Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creep Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb, Crimson with murder, touches him!
What has the gray-haired prisoner done?
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so; his crime's a fouler one; God made the old man poor!
For this he shares a felon's cell, The fittest earthly type of hell For this, the boon for which he poured His young blood on the invader's sword, And counted light the fearful cost; His blood-gained liberty is lost!
And so, for such a place of rest, Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rain On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga's plain?
Look forth, thou man of many scars, Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars; It must be joy, in sooth, to see Yon monument upreared to thee; Piled granite and a prison cell, The land repays thy service well!
Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, And fling the starry banner out; Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones Give back their cradle-shout; Let boastful eloquence declaim Of honor, liberty, and fame; Still let the poet's strain be heard, With glory for each second word, And everything with breath agree To praise "our glorious liberty!"
But when the patron cannon jars That prison's cold and gloomy wall, And through its grates the stripes and stars Rise on the wind, and fall, Think ye that prisoner's aged ear Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb, What is your carnival to him?
Down with the law that binds him thus!
Unworthy freemen, let it find No refuge from the withering curse Of God and human-kind Open the prison's living tomb, And usher from its brooding gloom The victims of your savage code To the free sun and air of God; No longer dare as crime to brand The chastening of the Almighty's hand.