VII.

Is here no triumph? Nay, what though
The yellow blood of Trade meanwhile should pour
Along its arteries a shrunken flow,

And the idle canvas droop around the shore?
These do not make a state,
Nor keep it great;

I think God made

The earth for man, not trade;

And where each humblest human creature
Can stand, no more suspicious or afraid,
Erect and kingly in his right of nature,
To heaven and earth knit with harmonious ties,
Where I behold the exultation

Of manhood glowing in those eyes
That had been dark for ages,

Or only lit with bestial loves and rages
There I behold a Nation:

The France which lies
Between the Pyrenees and Rhine
Is the least part of France;

I see her rather in the soul whose shine

Burns through the craftsman's grimy countenance, In the new energy divine

Of Toil's enfranchised glance.

VIII.

And if it be a dream,

If the great Future be the little Past

'Neath a new mask, which drops and shows at last The same weird, mocking face to balk and blast, Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the theme, And the Tyrtæan harp

Loves notes more resolute and sharp, Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot and fast: Such visions are of morning,

Theirs is no vague forewarning,

The dreams which nations dream come true,
And shape the world anew;

If this be a sleep,

Make it long, make it deep,

O Father, who sendest the harvests men reap!

While Labor so sleepeth
His sorrow is gone,
No longer he weepeth,
But smileth and steepeth
His thoughts in the dawn;
He heareth Hope yonder

Rain, lark-like, her fancies,
His dreaming hands wander
Mid heart's-ease and pansies;
""T is a dream! 'Tis a vision!"
Shrieks Mammon aghast;
"The day's broad derision
Will chase it at last;
Ye are mad, ye have taken,
A slumbering kraken

For firm land of the Past!"

Ah! if he awaken,

God shield us all then,

If this dream rudely shaken

Shall cheat him again!

IX.

Since first I heard our North wind blow,
Since first I saw Atlantic throw

On our fierce rocks his thunderous snow,
I loved thee, Freedom; as a boy
The rattle of thy shield at Marathon
Did with a Grecian joy

Through all my pulses run;

But I have learned to love thee now
Without the helm upon thy gleaming brow,
A maiden mild and undefiled

Like her who bore the world's redeeming child;
And surely never did thy altars glance
With purer fires than now in France;
While, in their bright white flashes,
Wrong's shadow, backward cast,
Waves cowering o'er the ashes

Of the dead, blaspheming Past,
O'er the shapes of fallen giants,
His own unburied brood,

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.

A PARABLE.

SAID Christ our Lord, "I will go and see
How the men, my brethren, believe in me."
He passed not again through the gate of birth,
But made himself known to the children of earth.

Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings,
"Behold, now, the Giver of all good things;
Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state
Him who alone is mighty and great."

With carpets of gold the ground they spread
Wherever the Son of Man should tread,

And in palace-chambers lofty and rare

They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare.

Great organs surged through arches dim
Their jubilant floods in praise of him,
And in church and palace, and judgment-hall,
He saw his image high over all.

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,

Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold:
I have heard the dropping of their tears
In heaven, these eighteen hundred years."

"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt,
We build but as our fathers built;
Behold thine images, how they stand,
Sovereign and sole, through all our land.

"Our task is hard, with sword and flame
To hold thy earth forever the same,
And with sharp crooks of steel to keep
Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep."

Then Christ sought out an artisan,
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin
Pushed from her faintly want and sin.

These set he in the midst of them,
And as they drew back their garment-hem,
For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he,
"The images ye have made of me!"

ODE

WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON.

My name is Water: I have sped

Through strange, dark ways, untried before,

By pure desire of friendship led,

Cochituate's ambassador;

He sends four royal gifts by me:
Long life, health, peace, and purity.

I'm Ceres' cup-bearer; I pour,

For flowers and fruits and all their kin,
Her crystal vintage, from of yore
Stored in old Earth's selectest bin,
Flora's Falernian ripe, since God
The wine-press of the deluge trod.

In that far isle whence, iron-willed,

The New World's sires their bark unmoored, The fairies' acorn-cups I filled

Upon the toadstool's silver board,

And, 'neath Herne's oak, for Shakspeare's sight,
Strewed moss and grass with diamonds bright.

No fairies in the Mayflower came,
And, lightsome as I sparkle here,
For Mother Bay-State, busy dame,

I've toiled and drudged this many a year,
Throbbed in her engines' iron veins,
Twirled myriad spindles for her gains.

I, too, can weave; the warp I set

Through which the sun his shuttle throws,

And, bright as Noah saw it, yet

For you the arching rainbow glows,

A sight in Paradise denied

To unfallen Adam and his bride.

When Winter held me in his grip,

You seized and sent me o'er the wave,
Ungrateful! in a prison-ship;

But I forgive, not long a slave,
For, soon as summer south-winds blew,
Homeward I fled, disguised as dew.

For countless services I'm fit,

Of use, of pleasure, and of gain,
But lightly from all bonds I flit,
Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain;
From mill and wash-tub I escape,
And take in heaven my proper shape.

So, free myself, to-day, elate

I come from far o'er hill and mead, And here, Cochituate's envoy, wait

To be your blithesome Ganymede, And brim your cups with nectar true That never will make slaves of you.