No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose Only to lay the sufferer asleep,
Where he who made him wretched troubles not His rest-thou dost strike down his tyrant too. Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold. Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible And old idolatries ;-from the proud fanes Each to his grave their priests go out, till none Is left to teach their worship; then the fires Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns, Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he
Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all
The laws that God or man has made, and round
Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,-- Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, And celebrates his shame in open day, Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off The horrible example. Touched by thine, The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer, Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame Blasted before his own foul calumnies, Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold His conscience to preserve a worthless life,
Even while he hugs himself on his escape, Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length, Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time For parley-nor will bribes unclench thy grasp. Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long- Ere his last hour., And when the reveller, Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on, And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal, And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,
And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,
And he is warned, and fears to step aside. Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts Drink up the ebbing spirit--then the hard
Of heart and violent of hand restores
The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged. Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed, Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon's latest breath Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime; The slanderer, horror smitten, and in tears, Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged
To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make
Thy penitent victim utter to the air
The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,
And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.
Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee,
Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile For ages, while each passing year had brought Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world With their abominations; while its tribes, Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn: But thou, the great reformer of the world, Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud
In their green pupilage, their lore half learned- Ere guilt has quite o'errun the simple heart God gave them at their birth, and blotted out
His image. Thou dost mark them, flushed with hope, As on the threshold of their vast designs
Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down.
Alas, I little thought that the stern power
Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus Before the strain was ended. It must cease-
For he is in his grave who taught my youth The art of verse, and in the bud of life Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, Ripened by years of toil and studious search
And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days,
And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes
And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have To offer at thy grave-this--and the hope To copy thy example, and to leave
A name of which the wretched shall not think As of an enemy's, whom they forgive As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou Whose early guidance trained my infant steps- Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep Of death is over, and a happier life
Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.
Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt Has wearied Heaven for vengeance-he who bears False witness-he who takes the orphan's bread, And robs the widow--he who spreads abroad Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,
Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look On what is written, yet I blot not out The desultory numbers-let them stand, The record of an idle revery.
"EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO EARTH"
EARTH'S children cleave to Earth-her frail
Decaying children dread decay.
Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale, And lessens in the morning ray : Look, how, by mountain rivulet,
It lingers, as it upward creeps, And clings to fern and copsewood set Along the green and dewy steeps: Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings To precipices fringed with grass, Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings, And bowers of fragrant sassafras. Yet all in vain-it passes still
From hold to hold, it cannot stay,
And in the very beams that fill
The world with glory, wastes away. Till, parting from the mountain's brow, It vanishes from human eye,
And that which sprung of earth is now A portion of the glorious sky.
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