"Live out thyself; with others share Thy proper life no more; assume The unconcern of sun and air,

For life or death, or blight or bloom.

"The mountain pine looks calmly on
The fires that scourge the plains below,
Nor heeds the eagle in the sun

The small birds piping in the snow!

"The world is God's, not thine; let him
Work out a change, if change must be
The hand that planted best can trim
And nurse the old unfruitful tree."

So spake the Tempter, when the light
Of sun and stars had left the sky,
I listened, through the cloud and night,
And heard, methought, a voice reply:

"Thy task may well seem over-hard,
Who scatterest in a thankless soil
Thy life as seed, with no reward
Šave that which Duty gives to Toil.

"Not wholly is thy heart resigned

To Heaven's benign and just decree,
Which, linking thee with all thy kind,
Transmits their joys and griefs to thee.

"Break off that sacred chain, and turn
Back on thyself thy love and care;
Be thou thine own mean idol, burn
Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.

"Released from that fraternal law

Which shares the common bale and bliss,

No sadder lot could Folly draw,

Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this.

THE VOICES.

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"The meal unshared is food unblest; Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend Self-ease is pain; thy only rest

Is labor for a worthy end.

"A toil that gains with what it yields,
And scatters to its own increase,
And hears, while sowing outward fields,
The harvest-song of inward peace.

"Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run,
Free shines for all the healthful ray ;
The still pool stagnates in the sun,
The lurid earth-fire haunts decay!

"What is it that the crowd requite
Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies?
And but to faith, and not to sight,
The walls of Freedom's temple rise?

"Yet do thy work; it shall succeed
In thine or in another's day;
And, if denied the victor's meed,

Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.

"Faith shares the future's promise; Love's
Self-offering is a triumph won

And each good thought or action moves
The dark world nearer to the sun.

"Then faint not, falter not, nor plead
Thy weakness; truth itself is strong;
The lion's strength, the eagle's speed,
Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.

"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood,
To place or gain finds out its way,
Hath power to seek the highest good,
And duty's holiest call obey!

"Strivest thou in darkness ?-Foes without In league with traitor thoughts within; Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin ?—

"Hast thou not, on some week of storm,
Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair,
And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form
The curtains of its tent of prayer?

"So, haply, when thy task shall end,
The wrong shall lose itself in right,
And all thy week-day darkness blend
With the long Sabbath of the light!"

THE HERO.

"O! FOR a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear;
My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!

66

“O! for the white plume floating

Sad Zutphen's field above

The lion heart in battle,

The woman's heart in love!

"O! that man once more were manly, Woman's pride, and not her scorn; That once more the pale young mother Dared to boast a man is born'!

"But, now life's slumberous current No sun-bowed cascade wakes;

No tall, heroic manhood

The level drlness breaks.

K

THE HERO.

*O! for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear!

My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!"

Then I said, my own heart throbbing
To the time her proud pulse beat,
"Life hath its regal natures yet-
True, tender, brave, and sweet!

"Smile not, fair unbeliever!
One man, at least, I know,
Who might wear the crest of Bayard,
O: Sidney's plume of snow.

Once, when over purple mountains
Died away the Grecian sun,
And the far Cyllenian ranges

Paled and darkened, one by one

"Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder,
Cleaving all the quiet sky,

And against his sharp steel lightnings
Stood the Suliote but to die.

"Woe for the weak and halting! The crescent blazed behind

A curving line of sabres,

Like fire before the wind'

"Last to fly and first to rally,
Rode he of whom I speak,
When, groaning in his bridle-path
Sank down a wounded Greek.

"With the rich Albanian costume
Wet with many a ghastly stain
Gazing on earth and sky as one
Who might not gaze again !

225

"He looked forward to the mountains,
Back on foes that never spare,
Then flung him from his saddle,
And placed the stranger there.

"Allah! hu!' Through flashing sabres,
Through a stormy hail of lead,
The good Thessalian charger
Up the slopes of olives sped.

"Hot spurred the turbaned riders ;
He almost felt their breath,

Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down Between the hills and death.

"One brave and manful struggle-
He gained the solid land,

And the cover of the mountains,
And the carbines of his band!"

"It was very great and noble,"
Said the moist-eyed listener then,
"But one brave deed makes no hero;
Tell me what he since hath been!”

"Still a brave and generous manhood, Still an honor without stain,

In the prison of the Kaiser,

By the barricades of Seine.

"But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood

Than battle ever knew.

"Wouldst know him now? Behold him,

The Cadmus of the blind,

Giving the dumb lip language,

The idiot clay a mind.