These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garmenthem,

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 Shakespeare'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

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.

LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD

BATTLE-GROUND.

THE same good blood that now refills The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, The same whose vigor westward thrills, Bursting Nevada's silver chains, Poured here upon the April grass, Freckled with red the herbage new ; On reeled the battle's trampling mass, Back to the ash the bluebird flew.

Poured here in vain;-that sturdy 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 tichens trace
The blazon of Oblivion.

These men were brave enough, and true To the hired soldier's bull-dog creed: What brought them here they never knew,

World-wide from that short April fray?

What then? With heart and hand they wrought,

According to their village light;
'T was for the Future that they 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.

When all our good seems pond in sheaves,

And we stand reaped and bare.

Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow.

But each day brings less summer cheer,
Crimps more our ineffectual spring,
And something earlier every year
Our singing birds take wing.

As less the olden glow abides,

And less the chillier heart aspires, With drift-wood beached in past springtides

We light our sullen fires.

By the pinched rushlight's starving beam

We cower and strain our wasted sight, To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by

seam,

In the long arctic night.

It was not so we once were youngWhen Spring, to womanly Summer turning,

Her dew-drops on each grass-blade strung,

In the red sunrise burning.

We trusted then, aspired, believed That earth could be remade to-mor

row:

Ah, why be ever undeceived?

Why give up faith for sorrow?

O thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving:

Experience is a dumb, dead thing;
The victory's in believing.

WE, too, have autumns, when our leaves Drop loosely through the dampened air,

FREEDOM.

ARE we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest Their spirit to our plains, and thou blue sea,

Who on our rocks thy wreaths of free

dom flingest,

As on an altar, can it be that ye
Have wasted inspiration on dead ears,
Dulled with the too familiar clank of
chains?

The people's heart is like a harp for years

Hung where some petrifying torrent rains

Is slow incrusting spray: the stiffened chords

Faint and more faint make answer to the tears

That drip upon them: idle are all words: Only a silver plectrum wakes the tone Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening stone.

We are not free: Freedom doth not consist

In musing with our faces toward the Past,

While petty cares, and crawling inter

ests, twist

Their spider-threads about us, which at

Forever yielding, never wholly won: That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace ;

Freedom gained yesterday is no more

ours;

Men gather but dry seeds of last year's flowers;

Still there's a charm ungranted, still a grace,

Still rosy Hope, the free,the unattained, Makes us Possession's languid hand let fall;

'T is but a fragment of ourselves is gained,

The Future brings us more, but never all.

And, as the finder of some unknown realm,

Mounting a summit whence he thinks

to see

On either side of him the imprisoning

sea,

BOWING thyself in dust before a Book, And thinking the great God is thine alone,

O rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook

And he, let come what will of woe, Has saved the land he strove to save; No Cossack hordes, no 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 wherethrough Our God sent forth awakening breath; Came chains? Came death? The strain He blew

Sounds on, outliving chains and death.'

TO LAMARTINE.
1848.

I DID not praise thee when the crowd, 'Witched with the moment's inspiration,

Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud,