Songs of Many Seasons (1862-74) | Page 4

tale beside
Of children caught and crucified;
I
heard the ducat-sweating thieves
Beneath the Ghetto's slouching
eaves,
And, thrust beyond the tented green,
The lepers cry,
"Unclean! Unclean!"
The show went on, but, ill at ease,
My sullen eye it could not please,

In vain my conscience whispered, "Shame!
Who but their Maker is
to blame?"
I thought of Judas and his bribe,
And steeled my soul

against their tribe
My neighbors stirred; I looked again
Full on the
younger of the twain.
A fresh young cheek whose olive hue
The mantling blood shows
faintly through;
Locks dark as midnight, that divide
And shade the
neck on either side;
Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam
Clear as a
starlit mountain stream;--
So looked that other child of Shem,
The
Maiden's Boy of Bethlehem!
And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood
That flows immingled
from the Flood,--
Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains
Of Norman
thieves and pirate Danes!
The New World's foundling, in thy pride

Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side,
And lo! the very semblance there

The Lord of Glory deigned to wear!
I see that radiant image rise,
The flowing hair, the pitying eyes,
The
faintly crimsoned cheek that shows
The blush of Sharon's opening
rose,--
Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet
Whose brethren
soil thy Christian seat,
Thy lips would press his garment's hem
That
curl in wrathful scorn for them!
A sudden mist, a watery screen,
Dropped like a veil before the scene;

The shadow floated from my soul,
And to my lips a whisper
stole,--
"Thy prophets caught the Spirit's flame,
From thee the Son
of Mary came,
With thee the Father deigned to dwell,--
Peace be
upon thee, Israel!"
18--. Rewritten 1874.
AFTER THE FIRE
WHILE far along the eastern sky
I saw the flags of Havoc fly,
As if
his forces would assault
The sovereign of the starry vault
And hurl
Him back the burning rain
That seared the cities of the plain,
I read
as on a crimson page
The words of Israel's sceptred sage :--

_For riches make them wings, and they
Do as an eagle fly away_.
O vision of that sleepless night,
What hue shall paint the mocking
light
That burned and stained the orient skies
Where peaceful
morning loves to rise,
As if the sun had lost his way
And dawned to
make a second day,--
Above how red with fiery glow,
How dark to
those it woke below!
On roof and wall, on dome and spire,
Flashed the false jewels of the
fire;
Girt with her belt of glittering panes,
And crowned with
starry-gleaming vanes,
Our northern queen in glory shone
With
new-born splendors not her own,
And stood, transfigured in our eyes,

A victim decked for sacrifice!
The cloud still hovers overhead,
And still the midnight sky is red;

As the lost wanderer strays alone
To seek the place he called his own,

His devious footprints sadly tell
How changed the pathways known
so well;
The scene, how new! The tale, how old
Ere yet the ashes
have grown cold!
Again I read the words that came
Writ in the rubric of the flame

Howe'r we trust to mortal things,
Each hath its pair of folded wings;

Though long their terrors rest unspread
Their fatal plumes are
never shed;
At last, at last they spread in flight,
And blot the day
and blast then night!
Hope, only Hope, of all that clings
Around us, never spreads her
wings;
Love, though he break his earthly chain,
Still whispers he
will come again;
But Faith that soars to seek the sky
Shall teach our
half-fledged souls to fly,
And find, beyond the smoke and flame,

The cloudless azure whence they came!
1872.
A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar

The bright Olympians and their Lord,
Her over-kind protector,--

Since Father Noah squeezed the grape
And took to such behaving

As would have shamed our grandsire ape
Before the days of
shaving,--
No! ne'er was mingled such a draught
In palace, hall, or
arbor,
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed
That night in Boston
Harbor!
The Western war-cloud's crimson stained
The Thames, the
Clyde, the Shannon;
Full many a six-foot grenadier
The flattened
grass had measured,
And many a mother many a year
Her tearful
memories treasured;
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall,
The
mighty realms were troubled,
The storm broke loose, but first of all

The Boston teapot bubbled!
An evening party,--only that,
No formal invitation,
No gold-laced
coat, no stiff cravat,
No feast in contemplation,
No silk-robed
dames, no fiddling band,
No flowers, no songs, no dancing,--
A
tribe of red men, axe in hand,--
Behold the guests advancing!
How
fast the stragglers join the throng,
From stall and workshop gathered!

The lively barber skips along
And leaves a chin half-lathered;

The smith has flung his hammer down,
The horseshoe still is glowing;

The truant tapster at the Crown
Has left a beer-cask flowing;
The
cooper's boys have dropped the adze,
And trot behind their master;

Up run the tarry ship-yard lads,--
The crowd is hurrying faster,--

Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush
The streams of white-faced
millers,

And down their slippery alleys rush
The lusty young
Fort-Hillers--
The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew,--
The tories
seize the omen:
"Ay, boys, you'll soon have work to do
For
England's rebel foemen,
'King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang,

That fire the mob with treason,--
When these we shoot and those we
hang
The town