And guide his flock to springs and pastures new; Through ways unlooked for, and through many lands, Far from the rich folds built with human hands, The gracious footprints of his love I trace. And what art thou, own brother of the clod, That from his hand the crook would snatch away And shake instead thy dry and sapless rod, To scare the sheep out of the wholesome day? Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted Jew, That with thy idol-volume's covers two Wouldst make a jail to coop the living God? Thou hear'st not well the mountain organ-tones By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai caught, Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew brains Drew dry the springs of the Allknower's thought, Nor shall thy lips be touched with living fire, MEMORIAL VERSES. KOSSUTH. A RACE of nobles may die out, But they fail not, the kinglier breed, Who starry diadems attain ; Came chains? Came death? The strain He blew Sounds on, outliving chains and death." TO LAMARTINE. 1848. To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed I DID not praise thee when the Heirs of the old heroic strain, The zeal of Nature never cools, Then she a saint and prophet spends. Land of the Magyars! though it be The tyrant may relink his chain, Already thine the victory, As the just future measures gain. Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won The deathly travail's amplest worth; A nation's duty thou hast done, And he, let come what will of woe, Hath saved the land he strove to save; No Cossack hordes, on traitor's blow, Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave. "I Kossuth am: O Future, thou That clear'st the just and blott'st the vile, O'er this small dust in reverence bow, Remembering what I was erewhile. "I was the chosen trump where through Our God sent forth awakening breath; crowd, 'Witched with the moment's inspiration, Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration; I but looked upward with the rest, And, when they shouted Greatest, whispered Best. Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of winds and waves! Or hope torouse some Coptic dullard, hid Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, With cerements close, to wither in the cold Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid! Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet; We climb to them through years of sweat and pain; Without long struggle none did e'er attain The downward look from Quiet's blissful seat: Though present loss may be the hero's part, Yet none can rob him of the victor heart Whereby the broad-realmed future is subdued, And Wrong, which now insults from triumph's car, Sending her vulture hope to raven far, Is made unwilling tributary of Good. O Mother State, how quenched thy Is there none left of thy stanch No spark among the ashes of thy sires, Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed? Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, And writhe through slimy ways to place and power?-- How long, O Lord, before thy wrathi shall reap Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower? Oh, for one hour of that undaunted stock That went with Vane and Sydney to the block! |