ASTRAEA.
"Jove means to settle Astraea in her seat again, And let down from his golden chain An age of better metal."
BEN JONSON, 1615.
O POET rare and old!
Thy words are prophecies; Forward the age of gold, The new Saturnian lies.
The universal prayer And hope are not in vain; Rise, brothers! and prepare The way for Saturn's reign.
Perish shall all which takes From labor's board and can; Perish shall all which makes A spaniel of the man!
Free from its bonds the mind, The body from the rod; Broken all chains that bind The image of our God.
Just men no longer pine Behind their prison-bars; Through the rent dungeon shine The free sun and the stars.
Earth own, at last, untrod By sect, or caste, or clan, The fatherhood of God, The brotherhood of man!
Fraud fail, craft perish, forth The money-changers driven, And God's will done on earth, As now in heaven.
1852.
THE DISENTHRALLED.
HE had bowed down to drunkenness, An abject worshipper The pride of manhood's pulse had grown Too faint and cold to stir; And he had given his spirit up To the unblessed thrall, And bowing to the poison cup, He gloried in his fall!
There came a change--the cloud rolled off, And light fell on his brain-- And like the passing of a dream That cometh not again, The shadow of the spirit fled.
He saw the gulf before, He shuddered at the waste behind, And was a man once more.
He shook the serpent folds away, That gathered round his heart, As shakes the swaying forest-oak Its poison vine apart; He stood erect; returning pride Grew terrible within, And conscience sat in judgment, on His most familiar sin.
The light of Intellect again Along his pathway shone; And Reason like a monarch sat Upon his olden throne.
The honored and the wise once more Within his presence came; And lingered oft on lovely lips His once forbidden name.
There may be glory in the might, That treadeth nations down; Wreaths for the crimson conqueror, Pride for the kingly crown; But nobler is that triumph hour, The disenthralled shall find, When evil passion boweth down, Unto the Godlike mind.
THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY.
THE proudest now is but my peer, The highest not more high; To-day, of all the weary year, A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small, The nameless and the known; My palace is the people's hall, The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list Beside the served shall stand; Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor, The weak is strong to-day; And sleekest broadcloth counts no more Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence My stubborn right abide; I set a plain man's common sense Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try The strength of gold and land; The wide world has not wealth to buy The power in my right hand!
While there's a grief to seek redress, Or balance to adjust, Where weighs our living manhood less Than Mammon's vilest dust,-- While there's a right to need my vote, A wrong to sweep away, Up! clouted knee and ragged coat A man's a man to-day.
1848.
THE DREAM OF PIO NONO.
IT chanced that while the pious troops of France Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands (The Hun and Aaron meet for such a Moses), Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious Rome To bless the ministry of Oudinot, And sanctify his iron homilies And sharp persuasions of the bayonet, That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed.
He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sun Of the bight Orient; and beheld the lame, The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master's feet, And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all, Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise From heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song, He heard the blessed angels sing of peace, Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord.
Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face Hardened and darkened by fierce summer suns And hot winds of the desert, closer drew His fisher's haick, and girded up his loins, And spake, as one who had authority "Come thou with me."
Lakeside and eastern sky And the sweet song of angels passed away, And, with a dream's alacrity of change, The priest, and the swart fisher by his side, Beheld the Eternal City lift its domes And solemn fanes and monumental pomp Above the waste Campagna. On the hills The blaze of burning villas rose and fell, And momently the mortar's iron throat Roared from the trenches; and, within the walls, Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain, Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell, And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound, Half wail and half defiance. As they passed The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood Flowed ankle-high about them, and dead men Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles,-- A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh, From which at times, quivered a living hand, And white lips moved and moaned. A father tore His gray hairs, by the body of his son, In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell.
Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seen The blessed Master and His works of love; Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels sing Above this open hell? Thou God's high-priest!
Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace!
Thou the successor of His chosen ones!
I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, In the dear Master's name, and for the love Of His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, Alien and separate from His holy faith, Wide as the difference between death and life, The hate of man and the great love of God!
Hence, and repent!"
Thereat the pontiff woke, Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream.
"What means he?" cried the Bourbon, "Nothing more Than that your majesty hath all too well Catered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth, The Holy Father's supper troubleth him,"
Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile.
1853.
THE VOICES.
WHY urge the long, unequal fight, Since Truth has fallen in the street, Or lift anew the trampled light, Quenched by the heedless million's feet?
"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake The fools who know not ill from good Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take Thine ease among the multitude.
"Live out thyself; with others share Thy proper life no more; assume The unconcern of sun and air, For life or death, or blight or bloom.
"The mountain pine looks calmly on The fires that scourge the plains below, Nor heeds the eagle in the sun The small birds piping in the snow!
"The world is God's, not thine; let Him Work out a change, if change must be The hand that planted best can trim And nurse the old unfruitful tree."
So spake the Tempter, when the light Of sun and stars had left the sky; I listened, through the cloud and night, And beard, methought, a voice reply: