ITALY.
ACROSS the sea I heard the groans Of nations in the intervals Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones, And sucked by priestly cannibals.
I dreamed of Freedom slowly gained By martyr meekness, patience, faith, And lo! an athlete grimly stained, With corded muscles battle-strained, Shouting it from the fields of death!
I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight, Among the clamoring thousands mute, I only know that God is right, And that the children of the light Shall tread the darkness under foot.
I know the pent fire heaves its crust, That sultry skies the bolt will form To smite them clear; that Nature must The balance of her powers adjust, Though with the earthquake and the storm.
God reigns, and let the earth rejoice!
I bow before His sterner plan.
Dumb are the organs of my choice; He speaks in battle's stormy voice, His praise is in the wrath of man!
Yet, surely as He lives, the day Of peace He promised shall be ours, To fold the flags of war, and lay Its sword and spear to rust away, And sow its ghastly fields with flowers!
1860.
FREEDOM IN BRAZIL.
WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth In blue Brazilian skies; And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth From sunset to sunrise,
From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves Thy joy's long anthem pour.
Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves Shall shame thy pride no more.
No fettered feet thy shaded margins press; But all men shall walk free Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness, Hast wedded sea to sea.
And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth The word of God is said, Once more, "Let there be light!"--Son of the South, Lift up thy honored head, Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert More than by birth thy own, Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt By grateful hearts alone.
The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, But safe shall justice prove; Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail The panoply of love.
Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace, Thy future is secure; Who frees a people makes his statue's place In Time's Valhalla sure.
Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar Stretches to thee his hand, Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, Wrote freedom on his land.
And he whose grave is holy by our calm And prairied Sangamon, From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm To greet thee with "Well done!"
And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet, And let thy wail be stilled, To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat Her promise half fulfilled.
The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, No sound thereof hath died; Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will Shall yet be satisfied.
The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, And far the end may be; But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong Go out and leave thee free.
1867.
AFTER ELECTION.
THE day's sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how!
As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire.
Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!
Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke; That sound from lake and prairie broke, That sunset-gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent!
That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!
Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee?
What strange, glad voice is that which calls From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?
From Mississippi's fountain-head A sound as of the bison's tread!
There rustled freedom's Charter Oak In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!
Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun. We have a country yet!
The praise, O God, be thine alone!
Thou givest not for bread a stone; Thou hast not led us through the night To blind us with returning light; Not through the furnace have we passed, To perish at its mouth at last.
O night of peace, thy flight restrain!
November's moon, be slow to wane!
Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, On brows of prayer a blessing pour; And give, with full assurance blest, The weary heart of Freedom rest!
1868.
DISARMAMENT.
"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe Down which a groaning diapason runs From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sons Of desolate women in their far-off homes, Waiting to hear the step that never comes!
O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.
War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!
Fear not the end. There is a story told In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit With grave responses listening unto it Once, on the errands of his mercy bent, Buddha, the holy and benevolent, Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook.
"O son of peace!" the giant cried, "thy fate Is sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate."
The unarmed Buddha looking, with no trace Of fear or anger, in the monster's face, In pity said: "Poor fiend, even thee I love."
Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sank To hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrank Into the form and fashion of a dove; And where the thunder of its rage was heard, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird "Hate hath no harm for love," so ran the song; "And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!"
1871.
THE PROBLEM.
I.
NOT without envy Wealth at times must look On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam; All who, by skill and patience, anyhow Make service noble, and the earth redeem From savageness. By kingly accolade Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made.
Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain And evil counsels proffer, they maintain Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain, And softer pillow for the head of Age.
II.
And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields Labor its just demand; and well for Ease If in the uses of its own, it sees No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields And spreads the table of its luxuries.