Labor and Reform, vol 3, part 5 | Page 3

for blood,
Rank
ye with those who led their victims round
The Celt's red altar and the
Indian's mound,
Abhorred of Earth and Heaven, a pagan brotherhood!

1842.
SEED-TIME AND HARVEST.
As o'er his furrowed fields which lie
Beneath a coldly dropping sky,

Yet chill with winter's melted snow,
The husbandman goes forth to
sow,
Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast
The ventures of thy seed we cast,

And trust to warmer sun and rain
To swell the germs and fill the
grain.
Who calls thy glorious service hard?
Who deems it not its own
reward?
Who, for its trials, counts it less.
A cause of praise and
thankfulness?
It may not be our lot to wield
The sickle in the ripened field;
Nor
ours to hear, on summer eves,
The reaper's song among the sheaves.
Yet where our duty's task is wrought
In unison with God's great
thought,
The near and future blend in one,
And whatsoe'er is willed,
is done!
And ours the grateful service whence
Comes day by day the
recompense;
The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed,
The fountain
and the noonday shade.
And were this life the utmost span,
The only end and aim of man,

Better the toil of fields like these
Than waking dream and slothful
ease.
But life, though falling like our grain,
Like that revives and springs
again;
And, early called, how blest are they
Who wait in heaven

their harvest-day!
1843.
TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND.
This poem was
addressed to those who like Richard Cobden and John Bright were
seeking the reform of political evils in Great Britain by peaceful and
Christian means. It will be remembered that the Anti-Corn Law League
was in the midst of its labors at this time.
GOD bless ye, brothers! in the fight
Ye 're waging now, ye cannot
fail,
For better is your sense of right
Than king-craft's triple mail.
Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban,
More mighty is your simplest word;

The free heart of an honest man
Than crosier or the sword.
Go, let your blinded Church rehearse
The lesson it has learned so
well;
It moves not with its prayer or curse
The gates of heaven or
hell.
Let the State scaffold rise again;
Did Freedom die when Russell died?

Forget ye how the blood of Vane
From earth's green bosom cried?
The great hearts of your olden time
Are beating with you, full and
strong;
All holy memories and sublime
And glorious round ye
throng.
The bluff, bold men of Runnymede
Are with ye still in times like
these;
The shades of England's mighty dead,
Your cloud of
witnesses!
The truths ye urge are borne abroad
By every wind and every tide;

The voice of Nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.
The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which Heaven
itself has wrought,
Light, Truth, and Love; your battle-ground
The
free, broad field of Thought.

No partial, selfish purpose breaks
The simple beauty of your plan,

Nor lie from throne or altar shakes
Your steady faith in man.
The languid pulse of England starts
And bounds beneath your words
of power,
The beating of her million hearts
Is with you at this hour!
O ye who, with undoubting eyes,
Through present cloud and
gathering storm,
Behold the span of Freedom's skies,
And sunshine
soft and warm;
Press bravely onward! not in vain
Your generous trust in human-kind;

The good which bloodshed could not gain
Your peaceful zeal shall
find.
Press on! the triumph shall be won
Of common rights and equal laws,

The glorious dream of Harrington,
And Sidney's good old cause.
Blessing the cotter and the crown,
Sweetening worn Labor's bitter
cup;
And, plucking not the highest down,
Lifting the lowest up.
Press on! and we who may not share
The toil or glory of your fight

May ask, at least, in earnest prayer,
God's blessing on the right!

1843.
THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.
Some leading sectarian papers had lately published the letter of a
clergyman, giving an account of his attendance upon a criminal (who
had committed murder during a fit of intoxication), at the time of his
execution, in western New York. The writer describes the agony of the
wretched being, his abortive attempts at prayer, his appeal for life, his
fear of a violent death; and, after declaring his belief that the poor
victim died without hope of salvation, concludes with a warm eulogy
upon the gallows, being more than ever convinced of its utility by the
awful dread and horror which it inspired.

I.
FAR from his close and noisome cell,
By grassy lane and sunny
stream,
Blown clover field and strawberry dell,
And green and
meadow freshness, fell
The footsteps of his dream.
Again from
careless feet the dew
Of summer's misty morn he shook;
Again
with merry heart he threw
His light line in the rippling brook.
Back
crowded all his school-day joys;
He urged the ball and quoit again,

And heard the shout of laughing boys
Come ringing down the walnut
glen.
Again he felt the western breeze,
With scent of flowers and
crisping hay;
And down again through wind-stirred trees
He saw
the quivering sunlight play.
An angel in home's vine-hung door,
He
saw his sister smile once more;
Once more the truant's brown-locked
head
Upon his mother's knees was laid,
And sweetly lulled to
slumber