LINES.

There to-night shall woman's glances,
Star-like, welcome give to them,
Fawning fools with shy advances

Seek to touch their garments' hem,

With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth

condemn.

From this glittering lie my vision
Takes a broader, sadder range,
Full before me have arisen

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Other pictures dark and strange;

From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness

change.

Hark! the heavy gate is swinging

On its hinges, harsh and slow;

One pale prison lamp is flinging

On a fearful group below

Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does not show.

Pitying God! Is that a WOMAN

On whose wrist the shackles clash?

Is that shriek she utters human,

Underneath the stinging lash?

Are they MEN whose eyes of madness from that sad procession

flash?

Still the dance goes gayly onward!

What is it to Wealth and Pride?
That without the stars are looking

On a scene which earth should hide?

That the SLAVE-SHIP lies in waiting, rocking on Potomac's tide!

Vainly to that mean Ambition

Which, upon a rival's fall,
Winds above its old condition,
With a reptile's slimy crawl,

Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish

call?

Vainly to the child of Fashion,
Giving to ideal woe
Graceful luxury of compassion,
Shall the stricken mourner go;

Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show!

Nay, my words are all too sweeping;
In this crowded human mart,
Feeling is not dead, but sleeping;

Man's strong will and woman's heart,

In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous

part.

And from yonder sunny valleys,

Southward in the distance lost,
Freedom yet shall summon allies

Worthier than the North can boast,

With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost.

Now, the soul alone is willing.

Faint the heart and weak the knee;

And as yet no lip is thrilling

With the mighty words "BE FREE!"

Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be!

Meanwhile, turning from the reve1

To the prison-cell my sight,

For intenser hate of evil,

For a keener sense of right,

Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night!

"To thy duty now and ever!

Dream no more of rest or stay;
Give to Freedom's great endeavor
All thou art and hast to-day":-

Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say.

Ye with heart and vision gifted

To discern and love the right,

LINES.

Whose worn faces have been lifted

To the slowly-growing light,

Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of

night!

Ye who through long years of trial
Still have held your purpose fast,
While a lengthening shade the dial

From the westering sunshine cast,
And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of the last!

O my brothers !'O my sisters!

Would to God that ye were near,
Gazing with me down the vistas

With the storm above us driving,

With the false earth mined below
Who shall marvel if thus striving
We have counted friend as foe;

Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow.

Of a sorrow strange and drear;

Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice I seem to hear!

Well it may be that our natures

Have grown sterner and more hard,
And the freshness of their features

Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred,

And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred.

Be it so. It should not swerve us
From a purpose true and brave ;
Dearer Freedom's rugged service
Than the pastime of the slave;
Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the grave.

Let us then, uniting, bury

All our idle feuds in dust,

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And to future conflicts carry

Mutual faith and common trust;

Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is most just.

From the eternal shadow rounding
All our sun and starlight here,
Voices of our lost ones sounding

Bid us be of heart and cheer, Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear.

Know we not our dead are looking
Downward with a sad surprise,
All our strife of words rebuking

With their mild and loving eyes ?
Shall we grieve the holy angels?
skies?

Shall we cloud their blessed

Let us draw their mantles o'er us
Which have fallen in our way;
Let us do the work before us,

Cheerly, bravely, while we may,

Ere the long night-sifence cometh, and with us it is not day!

YORKTOWN.

FR

"ROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still,
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill:
Who curbs his steed at head of one?
Hark! the low murmur: Washington!
Who bends his keen, approving glance
Where down the gorgeous line of France
Shine knightly star and plume of snow?
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau !

The earth which bears this calm array
Shook with the war-charge yesterday,
Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel,
Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel;

YORKTOWN.

October's clear and noonday sun
Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun,
And down night's double blackness fell,
Like a dropped star, the blazing shell.

Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines
Stand moveless as the neighboring pines ;
While through them, sullen, grim, and slow,
The conquered hosts of England go :
O'Hara's brow belies his dress,
Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless :
Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes,
Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes!

Nor thou alone: with one glad voice
Let all thy sister States rejoice;
Let Freedom, in whatever clime
She waits with sleepless eye her time,
Shouting from cave and mountain wood,
Make glad her desert solitude,

While they who hunt her quail with fear :
The New World's chain lies broken here!

But who are they, who, cowering, wait
Within the shattered fortress gate?
Dark tillers of Virginia's soil,
Classed with the battle's common spoil,
With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine,
With Indian weed and planters' wine,
With stolen beeves, and foraged corn, -
Are they not men, Virginian born?

O, veil your faces, young and brave!
Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave!
Sons of the Northland, ye who set
Stout hearts against the bayonet,
And pressed with steady footfall near
The moated battery's blazing tier,
Turn your scarred faces from the sight,
Let shame do homage to the right!

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