THE FATHERLAND.

WHERE is the true man's fatherland?
Is it where he by chance is born?
Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
O, yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Is it alone where freedom is,

Where God is God and man is man?
Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than this?
O, yes! his fatherland must be

As the blue heaven wide and free!

Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,

There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

Where'er a single slave doth pine,

Where'er one man may help another, Thank God for such a birthright, brother,That spot of earth is thine and mine! There is the true man's birthplace grand, His is a world-wide fatherland!

THE FORLORN.

THE night is dark, the stinging sleet,
Swept by the bitter gusts of air,
Drives whistling down the lonely street,
And stiffens on the pavement bare.

The street-lamps flare and struggle dim Through the white sleet-clouds as they pass,

Or, governed by a boisterous whim,

Drop down and rattle on the glass.

One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl
Faces the east-wind's searching flaws,
And, as about her heart they whirl,

Her tattered cloak more tightly draws.

The flat brick walls look cold and bleak,
Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze;
Yet dares she not a shelter seek,

Though faint with hunger and disease.

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within.

She lingers where a ruddy glow

Streams outward through an open shutter, Adding more bitterness to woe,

More loneness to desertion utter.

One half the cold she had not felt,
Until she saw this gush of light
Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt

Its slow way through the deadening night.

She hears a woman's voice within,

Singing sweet words her childhood knew, And years of misery and sin

Furl off, and leave her heaven blue.

Her freezing heart, like one who sinks
Outwearied in the drifting snow,
Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks
No longer of its hopeless woe:

Old fields, and clear blue summer days,
Old meadows, green with grass and trees
That shimmer through the trembling haze
And whiten in the western breeze, —

Old faces, all the friendly past

Rises within her heart again,

And sunshine from her childhood cast
Makes summer of the icy rain.

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,
From all humanity apart,

She hears old footsteps wandering slow
Through the lone chambers of her heart.

Outside the porch before the door,
Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,
She lies, no longer foul and poor,
No longer dreary and alone.

Next morning something heavily
Against the opening door did weigh,
And there, from sin and sorrow free,
A woman on the threshold lay.

A smile upon the wan lips told

That she had found a calm release, And that, from out the want and cold, The song had borne her soul in peace.

For, whom the heart of man shuts out,
Sometimes the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about

With silence mid the world's loud din;

And one of his great charities

Is Music, and it doth not scorn To close the lids upon the eyes Of the polluted and forlorn;

Far was she from her childhood's home, Farther in guilt had wandered thence, Yet thither it had bid her come

To die in maiden innocence.

1842.

MIDNIGHT.

THE moon shines white and silent
On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,

O'er the wide marsh doth glide,
Spreading its ghost-like billows
Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic
Makes all things mysteries,
And lures the earth's dumb spirit
Up to the longing skies,
I seem to hear dim whispers,
And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o'er the meadow
In pulses come and go;
The elm-trees' heavy shadow
Weighs on the grass below;
And faintly from the distance
The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic, bushes swell

The very

And take wild shapes and motions, As if beneath a spell,

They seem not the same lilacs

From childhood known so well.

The snow of deepest silence
O'er everything doth fall,
So beautiful and quiet,

And yet so like a pall,

As if all life were ended,
And rest were come to all.

O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,

And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality!

1842.

A PRAYER.

GOD! do not let my loved one die, But rather wait until the time That I am grown in purity

Enough to enter thy pure clime Then take me, I will gladly go, So that my love remain below!

O, let her stay! She is by birth

What I through death must learn to be, We need her more on our poor earth,

Than thou canst need in heaven with thee: She hath her wings already, I

Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly.

Then, God, take me! We shall be near,
More near than ever, each to each:
Her angel ears will find more clear
My heavenly than my earthly speech;
And still, as I draw nigh to thee,
Her soul and mine shall closer be.
1841.

THE HERITAGE.

THE rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;

A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man's son inherits cares;

The bank may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble shares,
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man's son inherits wants,

His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart, he hears the pants
Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare,
And wearies in his easy chair;

A heritage, it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man's son inherit?

Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,