954
The Chemical conviction
That Nought be lost
Enable in Disaster
My fractured Trust—
The Faces of the Atoms
If I shall see
How more the Finished Creatures
Departed me!
My old good friend, my faithful Demon,
Had sung the little song to me:
All night of hell the sailor sailed on,
But drowned by the morn in sea.
Around him waves stood like domes,
They fell and loomed again above,
And before him, whiter than foam,
Was flying his unrivaled love.
He heard the call, while he was flitting,
"I'll not deceive you, trust in me."
Remember, -- said this Demon, witty, --
He drowned at the morn in sea.
MY Countrymen, though we are young as yet
With little history, nought to show
Of lives enleagued against a foreign foe,
Torn flags and triumph, glory or regret;
Still some things make our kinship sweet,
Some deeds inglorious but of royal worth,
As when with tireless arms and toiling feet
We felled the tree and tilled the earth.
’Tis no great way that we have travelled since
Our feet first shook the storied dust
Of England from them, when with love and trust
For those that never know the light,
The darkness is a sullen thing;
And they, the Children of the Night,
Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing.
But some are strong and some are weak, --
And there's the story. House and home
Are shut from countless hearts that seek
World-refuge that will never come.
And if there be no other life,
And if there be no other chance
To weigh their sorrow and their strife
Than in the scales of circumstance,
'T were better, ere the sun go down
GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;
The hill-top is nigh--but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)
Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and
extra years;
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.
Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means;
On the plain below, recruits are drilling and exercising;
There is the camp--one regiment departs to-morrow;
So you rode from the range where your brothers “select,”
Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn---
You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect
That you were glad to be gone;
You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her
By the homestead receding from view,
And you breathed with relief as you rounded the spur,
For the world was a wide world to you.
Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain,
Fond heart that is ever more true
I rose at night and visited
The Cave of the Unborn,
And crowding shapes surrounded me
For tidings of the life to be,
Who long had prayed the silent Head
To speed their advent morn.
Their eyes were lit with artless trust;
Hope thrilled their every tone:
"A place the loveliest, is it not?
A pure delight, a beauty-spot
Where all is gentle, pure and just
And ??violence?? is unknown?"
My heart was anguished for their sake;
I could not frame a word;
But they descried my sunken face
Silvia, let's from the Crowd retire;
For, What to you and me
(Who but each other do desire)
Is all that here we see?
Apart we'll live, tho' not alone;
For, who alone can call
Those, who in Desarts live with One,
If in that One they've All?
The World a vast Meander is,
Where Hearts confus'dly stray;
Where Few do hit, whilst Thousands miss
The happy mutual Way:
Where Hands are by stern Parents ty'd,
Who oft, in Cupid's Scorn,
Do for the widow'd State provide,
We may sigh o'er the heavy burdens
Of the black, the brown and white;
But if we all clasped hands together
The burdens would be more light.
How to solve life's saddest problems,
Its weariness, want and woe,
Was answered by One who suffered
In Palestine long ago.
He gave from his heart this precept,
To ease the burdens of men,
"As ye would that others do to you
Do ye even so to them."
Life's heavy, wearisome burdens
Will change to a gracious trust
I slept,--'twas midnight,--in my bosom woke,
As though 'twere day, my love-o'erflowing heart;
To me it seemed like night, when day first broke;
What is't to me, whate'er it may impart?
She was away; the world's unceasing strife
For her alone I suffer'd through the heat
Of sultry day; oh, what refreshing life
At cooling eve!--my guerdon was complete.
The sun now set, and wand'ring hand in hand,
His last and blissful look we greeted then;
While spake our eyes, as they each other scann'd:
