144

Sympathy and Faith.

Let us raise our supplication,

For the scourged and suffering slave

All whose life is desolation,

All whose hope is in the grave;
God of mercy!

From thy Throne, O hear and save.

Those in bonds we would remember,
Lord! our hands with theirs are bound;
With each helpless suffering member,
Let our sympathies be found,
Till our labors

Spread the smile of freedom round.

Even now the word is spoken:

'Tyrants' cruel power must cease-
From the slave the chain be broken-
Captives hail the kind release':
Then in splendor

Christ shall reign, the Prince of Peace!

And for whom

Hath He, who shakes the mighty with a breath
From their high places, made the fearfulness,
And ever-wakeful presence of his power,

To the pale startled earth most manifest,

But for the weak ?-Was't for the helmed and crowned
That suns were stayed at noonday?-Stormy seas

As a rill parted?-Mailed archangels sent

To wither up the strength of kings with death?

Zeal and Devotion.

-I tell you, if these marvels have been done,
'T was for the wearied and the oppressed of men,
They needed such !—And generous faith hath power
By her prevailing spirit, e'en yet to work

Deliverances, whose tale shall live with those
Of the great elder time.

145

Felicia Hemans.

Zeal and Devotion.

LXXXIV.

KEBLE.

Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand] and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. St. Matthew xx. 28.

SIT down and take thy fill of joy

At God's right hand, a bidden guest,
Drink of the cup that cannot cloy,

Eat of the bread that cannot waste.
O great Apostle! rightly now

Thou readest all thy Saviour meant,
What time His grave yet gentle brow
In sweet reproof on thee was bent.

'Seek ye to sit enthroned by me?
Alas! ye know not what ye ask,

146

Zeal and Devotion.

The first in shame and agony,

The lowest in the meanest task

This can ye be? and can ye

drink

The cup that I in tears must steep,
Nor from the whelming waters shrink
That o'er me roll so dark and deep?'

'We can-thine are we, dearest Lord,
In glory and in agony,

To do and suffer all Thy word;
Only be Thou for ever nigh.'
'Then be it so my cup receive,

And of my woes baptismal taste :
But for the crown that angels weave,
For those next me in glory placed.

I give it not by partial love;

But in my Father's book are writ
What names on earth shall lowliest prove,

That they in Heaven may highest sit.'
Take up the lesson, O my heart;

Thou Lord of meekness, write it there,
Thine own meek self to me impart,
Thy lofty hope, thy lowly prayer.

If ever on the mount with thee,
I seem to soar in vision bright,

Convention.

*

With thoughts of coming agony
Stay thou the too presumptuous flight:
Gently along the vale of tears

147

Lead me from Tabor's sunbright steep,
Let me not grudge a few short years
With Thee toward heaven to walk and weep.

Convention.

LXXXV.

CHILDREN of the glorious dead,
Who for freedom fought and bled,
With her banner o'er you spread,
On to victory.

Not for stern ambition's prize,
Do our hopes and wishes rise;
Lo, our Leader, from the skies,
Bids us do or die.

Ours is not the tented field-
We no earthly weapons wield-
Light and Love, our sword and shield,
Truth our Panoply.

Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak-but as our masters please?

Shall outraged nature cease to feel?
Shall mercy's tear no longer flow?
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel-
The dungeon's gloom-the assassin's blow,
Turn back the spirit roused to save
Our Truth-our Country-and the Slave?

Of human skulls that shrine was made,
Whereon the priests of Mexico
Before their loathsome idol prayed-
Is Freedom's Altar fashioned so ?
And must we yield to Freedom's God,
As offering meet, the negro's blood?

Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall Freemen lock the indignant thought?
Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell?
Shall honor bleed ?-Shall Truth succumb ?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?