"And this commends itself as one To every conscience tender; As Paul sent back Onesimus,

My Christian friends, we send her!”

Shriek rose on shriek,—the Sabbath air
Her wild cries tore asunder;

I listened, with hushed breath, to hear
God answering with his thunder!

All still!—the very altar's cloth
Had smothered down her shrieking,
And, dumb, she turned from face to face,
For human pity seeking!

I saw her dragged along the aisle,
Her shackles harshly clanking;
I heard the parson, over all,

The Lord devoutly thanking!

My brain took fire: "Is this," I cried,
"The end of prayer and preaching?
Then down with pulpit, down with priest,
And give us Nature's teaching!

“Foul shame.and scorn be on ye all
Who turn the good to evil,
And steal the Bible from the Lord,
To give it to the Devil!

"Than garbled text or parchment law
I own a statute higher;
And God is true, though every book
And every man's a liar!"

Just then I felt the deacon's hand
In wrath my coat-tail seize on;
I heard the priest cry “Infidel!
The lawyer mutter "Treason!"

REMEMBRANCE.

I started up,-where now were church,
Slave, master, priest and people?
I only heard the supper-bell,

Instead of clanging steeple.

But, on the open window's sill,

O'er which the white blooms drifted, The pages of a good old Book

The wind of summer lifted.

And flower and vine, like angel wings
Around the Holy Mother,

Waved softly there, as if God's truth
And Mercy kissed each other.

And freely from the cherry-bough
Above the casement swinging,
With golden bosom to the sun,
The oriole was singing.

As bird and flower made plain of old
The lesson of the Teacher,

So now I heard the written Word
Interpreted by Nature !

163

For to my ear methought the breeze

Bore Freedom's blessed word on;

[YOKE

THUS SAITH THE LORD: BREAK EVERY

UNDO THE HEAVY BURDEN!

REMEMBRANCE.

WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS.

FRIEND of mine! whose lot was cast

With me in the distant past,

Whère, like shadows flitting fast,

Fact and fancy, thought and theme,
Word and work, begin to seem
Like a half-remembered dream!

Touched by change have all things been,

Yet I think of thee as when

We had speech of lip and pen.

For the calm thy kindness lent
To a path of discontent,
Rough with trial and dissent;

Gentle words where such were few,
Softening blame where blame was true,
Praising where small praise was due ;

For a waking dream made good,
For an ideal understood,
For thy Christian womanhood;

For thy marvellous gift to cull
From our common life and dull
Whatsoe'er is beautiful;

Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees
Dropping sweetness; true heart's ease
Of congenial sympathies;-

Still for these I own my debt;
Memory, with her eyelids wet,
Fain would thank thee even yet!

And as one who scatters flowers
Where the Queen of May's sweet hours
Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed bowers,

In superfluous zeal bestowing
Gifts where gifts are overflowing,
So I pay the debt I'm owing.

THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY. 165

To thy full thoughts, gay or sad,
Sunny-hued or sober clad,
Something of my own I add ;

Well assured that thou wilt take
Even the offering which I make
Kindly for the giver's sake.

THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY

THE proudest now is but my peer,

The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.

To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

While there's a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust

Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust,-
While there's a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man's a man to-day!

TRUST.

THE same old baffling questions! O, my friend
I cannot answer them. In vain I send
My soul into the dark, where never burn

The lamps of science, nor the natural light Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn Their great and solemn meanings, nor discern The awful secrets of the eyes which turn

Evermore on us through the day and night With silent challenge and a dumb demand, Proffering the riddles of the dread unknown, Like the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone, Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand!

I have no answer for myself or thee,

Save that I learned beside my mother's knee; All is of God that is, and is to be;

And God is good." Let this suffice us still,
Resting in child-like trust upon his will,

Who moves to his great ends unthwarted by the ill