"Thy task may well seem over-hard, Who scatterest in a thankless soil Thy life as seed, with no reward Save that which Duty gives to Toil.
"Not wholly is thy heart resigned To Heaven's benign and just decree, Which, linking thee with all thy kind, Transmits their joys and griefs to thee.
"Break off that sacred chain, and turn Back on thyself thy love and care; Be thou thine own mean idol, burn Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.
"Released from that fraternal law Which shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this.
"The meal unshared is food unblest Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend; Self-ease is pain; thy only rest Is labor for a worthy end;
"A toil that gains with what it yields, And scatters to its own increase, And hears, while sowing outward fields, The harvest-song of inward peace.
"Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run, Free shines for all the healthful ray; The still pool stagnates in the sun, The lurid earth-fire haunts decay.
"What is it that the crowd requite Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies?
And but to faith, and not to sight, The walls of Freedom's temple rise?
"Yet do thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day; And, if denied the victor's meed, Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.
"Faith shares the future's promise; Love's Self-offering is a triumph won; And each good thought or action moves The dark world nearer to the sun.
"Then faint not, falter not, nor plead Thy weakness; truth itself is strong; The lion's strength, the eagle's speed, Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.
"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, To place or gain finds out its way, Hath power to seek the highest good, And duty's holiest call obey!
"Strivest thou in darkness?--Foes without In league with traitor thoughts within; Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin?
"Hast thou not, on some week of storm, Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair, And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form The curtains of its tent of prayer?
"So, haply, when thy task shall end, The wrong shall lose itself in right, And all thy week-day darkness blend With the long Sabbath of the light!"
1854.
THE NEW EXODUS.
Written upon hearing that slavery had been formally abolished in Egypt.
Unhappily, the professions and pledges of the vacillating government of Egypt proved unreliable.
BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand, And through the parted waves, From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, God led the Hebrew slaves!
Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, As Egypt's statues cold, In the adytum of the sacred book Now stands that marvel old.
"Lo, God is great!" the simple Moslem says.
We seek the ancient date, Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase A dead one: "God was great!"
And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, We dream of wonders past, Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, Each drowsier than the last.
O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids Stretches once more that hand, And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand.
And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human smile.
Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves.
No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod; Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of God.
1856.
THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.
"Joseph Sturge, with a companion, Thomas Harvey, has been visiting the shores of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief and loss to poor and peaceable sufferers, occasioned by the gun-boats of the allied squadrons in the late war, with a view to obtaining relief for them."-- Friends' Review.
ACROSS the frozen marshes The winds of autumn blow, And the fen-lands of the Wetter Are white with early snow.
But where the low, gray headlands Look o'er the Baltic brine, A bark is sailing in the track Of England's battle-line.
No wares hath she to barter For Bothnia's fish and grain; She saileth not for pleasure, She saileth not for gain.
But still by isle or mainland She drops her anchor down, Where'er the British cannon Rained fire on tower and town.
Outspake the ancient Amtman, At the gate of Helsingfors "Why comes this ship a-spying In the track of England's wars?"
"God bless her," said the coast-guard,-- "God bless the ship, I say.
The holy angels trim the sails That speed her on her way!
"Where'er she drops her anchor, The peasant's heart is glad; Where'er she spreads her parting sail, The peasant's heart is sad.
"Each wasted town and hamlet She visits to restore; To roof the shattered cabin, And feed the starving poor.
"The sunken boats of fishers, The foraged beeves and grain, The spoil of flake and storehouse, The good ship brings again.
"And so to Finland's sorrow The sweet amend is made, As if the healing hand of Christ Upon her wounds were laid!"
Then said the gray old Amtman, "The will of God be done!
The battle lost by England's hate, By England's love is won!
"We braved the iron tempest That thundered on our shore; But when did kindness fail to find The key to Finland's door?
"No more from Aland's ramparts Shall warning signal come, Nor startled Sweaborg hear again The roll of midnight drum.
"Beside our fierce Black Eagle The Dove of Peace shall rest; And in the mouths of cannon The sea-bird make her nest.