Whose dead hands clench defiance
At the overpowering Good:
And down the happy future runs
a flood

Of prophesying light;

It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood,

Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud

Of Brotherhood and Right.

ANTI-APIS.

PRAISEST Law, friend? We, too, love it much, as they that love it best;

'Tis the deep, august foundation whereon Peace and Justice rest;

On the rock primeval, hidden in the Past its bases be, Block by block the endeavouring

Ages built it up to what we see.

But dig down the Old unbury;

thou shalt find on every stone That each Age hath carved the symbol of what god to them was known.

Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but the fairest that they knew; If their sight were dim and earthward, yet their hope and aim were true.

Surely as the unconscious needle

feels the far-off loadstar draw, So strives every gracious nature to at-one itself with law; And the elder Saints and Sages laid their pious framework right, By a theocratic instinct covered from the people's sight.

As their gods were, so their laws were; Thor the strong could reave and steal,

So through many a peaceful inlet tore the Norseman's eager keel;

But a new law came when Christ came, and not blameless, as before,

Can we, paying Him our lip-tithes, give our lives and faiths to Thor.

Law is holy ay, but what law? Is there nothing more divine Than the patched-up broils of Congress,-venal, full of meat and wine?

Is there, say you, nothing higher? Naught, God save us! that transcends

Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar men for vulgar ends?

Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or submit to them a plan, Ere He filled with loves, hopes, longings, this aspiring heart of man?

For their edict does the soul wait,

ere it swing round to the pole Of the true, the free, the Godwilled, all that makes it be a soul?

Law is holy; but not your law, ye who keep the tablets whole While ye dash the Law to pieces,

shatter it in life and soul; Bearing up the Ark is lightsome, golden Apis hid within, While we Levites share the offer

ings, richer by the people's sin.

Give to Cæsar what is Cæsar's? yes, but tell me, if you can, Is this superscription Caesar's here upon our brother man? Is not here some other's image, dark and sullied though it be, In this fellow-soul that worships,

struggles Godward even as we?

It was not to such a future that the

Mayflower's prow was turned; Not to such a fate the martyrs

clung, exulting as they burned; Not by such laws are menfashioned,

earnest, simple, valiant, great In the household virtues, whereon rests the unconquerable state.

Ah! there is a higher gospel, overhead the God-roof springs,

And each glad, obedient planet like

a golden shuttle sings Through the web which Time is weaving in his never-resting loom,

Weaving seasons many-coloured, bringing prophecy to doom.

Think you Truth a farthing rushlight to be pinched out when you will

With your deft official fingers, and your politician's skill? Is your God a wooden fetish, to be hidden out of sight, That his block eyes may not see you do the thing that is not right?

But the Destinies think not so; to their judgment-chamber lone Comes no noise of popular clamour,

there Fame's trumpet is not blown ;

Your majorities they reck not ;that you grant, but then you say

That you differ with them somewhat, which is stronger, you or they?

Patient are they as the insects that

build islands in the deep: They hurl not the bolted thunder,

but their silent way they keep; Where they have been that we

knów; where empires towered that were not just; Lo! the skulking wild fox scratches in a little heap of dust. 1851.

But still, wherever His steps they led,

The Lord in sorrow bent down His head,

And from under the heavy foundation-stones

The son of Mary heard bitter groans.

And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall

He marked great fissures that rent the wall,

And opened wider and yet more wide

As the living foundation heaved and sighed.

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,

On the bodies and souls of living men?

And think ye that building shall endure

Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

"With gates of silver and bars of gold

Yehave fenced My sheep from their Father's fold;

I have heard the dropping of their

tears

Where sleep the heroic villagers Borne red and stiff from Concord fight;

Thought Reuben, snatching down his gun,

Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, What earthquake rifts would shoot and run

World-wide from that short April fray?

What then? With heart and hand they wrought,

blood

Was meant to make the earth more green,

But in a higher, gentler mood Than broke this April noon serene; Two graves are here: to mark the place,

At head and foot, an unhewn stone, O'er which the herald lichens trace The blazon of Oblivion.

fought,

Their rustic faith in what was right.

Upon earth's tragic stage they burst Unsummoned, in the humble sock; Theirs the fifth act; the curtain

first

Rose long ago on Charles's block.

Their graves have voices; if they threw

Dice charged with fates beyond their ken,

Yet to their instincts they were true,

And had the genius to be men. Fine privilege of Freedom's host, Of even foot-soldiers for the Right!

For centuries dead, ye are not lost, Your graves send courage forth, and might.

ΤΟ

WE, too, have autumns, when our leaves

Drop loosely through the dampened air,

When all our good seems bound in sheaves,

And we stand reaped and bare.

Our seasons have no fixed returns Without our will they come and go;

A