Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torchlights trim, And wave them high across the abysmal black, Till bound, dumb millions there shall see them and rejoice. 10th mo., 1847. LINES, ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO A FRIEND. 'Tis said that in the Holy Land The angels of the place have blessed The pilgrim's bed of desert sand, Like Jacob's stone of rest. That down the hush of Syrian skies Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings The song whose holy symphonies Are beat by unseen wings; Till starting from his sandy bed, The wayworn wanderer looks to see The halo of an angel's head Shine through the tamarisk-tree. So through the shadows of my way So at the weary close of day Hath seemed thy voice of cheer. That pilgrim pressing to his goal LINES. The graceful palm-tree by the well, 58 Each pictured saint, whose golden hair And loving Mary's tomb; And thus each tint or shade which falls The pleasant thought of thee. Of one, in sun and shade the same, Not blind to faults and follies, thou These light leaves at thy feet I lay— Chance shootings from a frail life-tree, That tree still clasps the kindly mould, There still the morning zephyrs play, Yet, even in genial sun and rain, Oh, friend beloved, whose curious skill Keeps bright the last year's leaves and flowers, With warm, glad summer thoughts to fill The cold, dark, winter hours! Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I bring THE REWARD. WHO, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, Who bears no trace of passion's evil force? On the thronged pages of his memory's book, RAPHAEL. Alas!-the evil which we fain would shun Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; Yet, who, thus looking backward o'er his years, Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, He has not lived in vain, and while he gives He gazes backward, and with hope before, RAPHAEL. I SHALL not soon forget that sight: A hazy warmth, a dreamy light, On Raphael's picture lay. 55 It was a simple print I saw, A simple print:-the graceful flow Yet through its sweet and calm repose It was as if before me rose The white veil of a shrine. As if, as Gothland's sage has told, Was it the lifting of that eye, The waving of that pictured hand? The narrow room had vanished,-space Broad, luminous, remained alone, Through which all hues and shapes of grace And beauty looked or shone. Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, There drooped thy more than mortal face, Oh Mother, beautiful and mild ! Enfolding in one dear embrace Thy Saviour and thy Child! |