May-Day | Page 8

of home;

Nay, letters found us in our paradise;
So in the gladness of the new event
We struck
our camp, and left the happy hills.
The fortunate star that rose on us sank not;
The
prodigal sunshine rested on the land,
The rivers gambolled onward to the sea,
And
Nature, the inscrutable and mute,
Permitted on her infinite repose
Almost a smile to
steal to cheer her sons,
As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed.
OCCASIONAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

BRAHMA.
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know well the
subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanquished gods
to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the
doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou,
meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
NEMESIS.
Already blushes in thy cheek
The bosom-thought which thou must speak;
The bird,
how far it haply roam
By cloud or isle, is flying home;
The maiden fears, and fearing
runs
Into the charmed snare she shuns;
And every man, in love or pride,
Of his fate
is never wide.
Will a woman's fan the ocean smooth?
Or prayers the stony Parcae sooth,
Or coax the
thunder from its mark?
Or tapers light the chaos dark?
In spite of Virtue and the Muse,

Nemesis will have her dues,
And all our struggles and our toils
Tighter wind the
giant coils.
FATE.
Deep in the man sits fast his fate
To mould his fortunes mean or great:
Unknown to
Cromwell as to me
Was Cromwell's measure or degree;
Unknown to him, as to his
horse,
If he than his groom be better or worse.
He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,

With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,
Till late he learned, through doubt and
fear,
Broad England harboured not his peer:
Obeying Time, the last to own
The
Genius from its cloudy throne.
For the prevision is allied
Unto the thing so signified;

Or say, the foresight that awaits
Is the same Genius that creates.
FREEDOM.
Once I wished I might rehearse
Freedom's paean in my verse,
That the slave who
caught the strain
Should throb until he snapped his chain.
But the Spirit said, 'Not so;

Speak it not, or speak it low;
Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be
prayed,
Passion not to be expressed
But by heaving of the breast:
Yet,--wouldst
thou the mountain find
Where this deity is shrined,
Who gives to seas and sunset
skies
Their unspent beauty of surprise,
And, when it lists him, waken can
Brute or

savage into man;
Or, if in thy heart he shine,
Blends the starry fates with thine,

Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
And makes thy thoughts archangels be;

Freedom's secret wilt thou know?--
Counsel not with flesh and blood;
Loiter not for
cloak or food;
Right thou feelest, rush to do.'
ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857.
O tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty
heaven,
And one in our desire.
The cannon booms from town to town,
Our pulses are not less,
The joy-bells chime
their tidings down,
Which children's voices bless.
For He that flung the broad blue fold
O'er-mantling land and sea,
One third part of the
sky unrolled
For the banner of the free.
The men are ripe of Saxon kind
To build an equal state,--
To take the statute from the
mind,
And make of duty fate.
United States! the ages plead,--
Present and Past in under-song,--
Go put your creed
into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.
For sea and land don't understand,
Nor skies without a frown
See rights for which the
one hand fights
By the other cloven down.
Be just at home; then write your scroll
Of honour o'er the sea,
And bid the broad
Atlantic roll,
A ferry of the free.
And, henceforth, there shall be no chain,
Save underneath the sea
The wires shall
murmur through the main
Sweet songs of LIBERTY.
The conscious stars accord above,
The waters wild below,
And under, through the
cable wove,
Her fiery errands go.
For He that worketh high and wise,
Nor pauses in his plan,
Will take the sun out of
the skies
Ere freedom out of man.
BOSTON HYMN.
READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863.
The word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the
seaside,
And filled their hearts with flame.
God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;
Up to my ear the morning brings


The outrage of the poor.
Think ye I made this ball
A field of havoc and war,
Where tyrants great and tyrants
small
Might harry the weak and poor?
My angel, his name is Freedom,--
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways
east and west,
And fend you with his wing.
Lo! I uncover the land
Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers
the statue
When he has wrought his best;
I show