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 Columbia, of the rocks?Which dip their foot in the seas,?And soar to the air-borne flocks?Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.
I will divide my goods;?Call in the wretch and slave:?None shall rule but the humble,?And none but Toil shall have.
I will have never a noble,?No lineage counted great;?Fishers and choppers and ploughmen?Shall constitute a state.
Go, cut down trees in the forest,?And trim the straightest boughs;?Cut down the trees in the forest,?And build me a wooden house.
Call the people together,?The young men and the sires,?The digger in the harvest field,?Hireling, and him that hires;
And here in a pine state-house?They shall choose men to rule?In every needful faculty,?In church, and state, and school.
Lo, now! if these poor men?Can govern the land and sea,?And make just laws below the sun,?As planets faithful be.
And ye shall succour men;?'T
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