Earth and be by Pity led Ere they block the very door And will hush for naught but gore, THE LANDLORD WHAT boot your houses and your lands? You sleep in down, eat dainty fare, He mounts his crazy garret-stair And starves, the landlord over you. Feeding the clods your idlesse drains, You make more green six feet of soil; His fruitful word, like suns and rains, In spite of close-drawn deed and Partakes the seasons' bounteous fence, Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands, pains, And toils to lighten human toil. They slip into the graveyard's Your lands, with force or cunning Fence as you please, this plain Like a cloud o'er the lowlands poor man, Whose only fields are in his wit, Who shapes the world, as best he can, According to God's higher plan, Owns you, and fences as is fit. Though yours the rents, his in comes wax By right of eminent domain; From factory tall to woodman's ахе, All things on earth must pay their tax, To feed his hungry heart and brain. He takes you from your easy-chair, And what he plans that you must do ; thou lowerest, That hangs poised on a lull in the blast, To its fall leaning awful. In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches; Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou forebodest the dread avalanches, When whole mountains swoop valeward. In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, Like an old king led forth from his Thou alone know'st the splendor palace, When his people to battle are pouring From the city beneath him. To the lumberer asleep 'neath thy glooming Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion, Till he longs to be swung mid their booming In the tents of the Arabs of ocean, of winter, Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices, Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter, And then plunge down the muffled abysses In the quiet of midnight. Thou alone know'st the glory of summer Gazing down on thy broad seas of forest, Whose finned isles are their On thy subjects that send a proud To leap down on the eager At- SI DESCENDERO IN INFER lantic, Whose arms stretch to his playmate. The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches, Swooping thence on the continent under; Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches, There awaiteth his leap the fierce thunder, Growling low with impatience. Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green glory, Lusty father of Titans past number! The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary, Nestling close to thy branches in slumber, NUM, ADES O WANDERING dim on the extremest edge Of God's bright providence, whose spirits sigh Drearily in you, like the winter sedge That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff and dry, A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by From the clear North of Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace That here was once a shrine and holy place Of the supernal Beauty, A child's play-altar reared of stones and moss, With wilted flowers for offering laid across, And thee mantling with si- Mute recognition of the all-ruling How far are ye from the innocent, Yours is the prodigal comet's long from those Whose hearts are as a little lane serene, Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroke snows, Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green, Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen Than the plump wain at even Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves! How far are ye from those! yet who believes That ye can shut out heaven? Your souls partake its influence, not in vain Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane Its drift of noiseless apple-blooms receives. Looking within myself, I note how thin A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate, Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin; In my own heart I find the worst man's mate, And see not dimly the smooth hinged gate That opes to those abysses Where ye grope darkly, — ye who never knew On your young hearts love's consecrating dew, Or felt a mother's kisses, Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled; Ah, side by side with heart'sease in this world The fatal nightshade grows and bitter rue! One band ye cannot break, - the force that clips And grasps your circles to the central light; Thy phantasms grope and shiver, Whatever of true life there was in Or watch the loose shores crum thee 50 Leaps in our age's veins; Wield still thy bent and wrinkled empery, And shake thine idle chains;To thee thy dross is clinging, For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, Thy poets still are singing. Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, Float the green Fortunate Isles Where all thy hero-spirits dwell, and share Our martyrdoms and toils; 60 The present moves attended With all of brave and excellent and fair That made the old time splendid. TO THE FUTURE O LAND of Promise! from what Pisgah's height Can I behold thy stretch of peaceful bowers, Thy golden harvests flowing out of sight, Thy nestled homes and sun-illumined towers? Gazing upon the sunset's highheaped gold, Its crags of opal and of chrysolite, Its deeps on deeps of glory, that unfold Still brightening abysses, And blazing precipices, Whence but a scanty leap it seems to heaven, Sometimes a glimpse is given Of thy more gorgeous realm, thy more unstinted blisses. 10 O Land of Quiet! to thy shore the surf Of the perturbed Present rolls and sleeps; |