He heareth Hope yonder Rain, lark-like, her fancies, His dreaming hands wander 'Mid heart's-ease and pansies; ""Tis a dream! 'Tis a vision !'
Shrieks Mammon aghast; "The day's broad derision Will chase it at last; Ye are mad, ye have taken
A slumbering kraken
For firm land of the Past!"
Ah! if he awaken,
God shield us all then, If this dream rudely shaken Shall cheat him again!
Since first I heard our North wind blow, Since first I saw Atlantic throw
On our fierce rocks his thunderous snow, I loved thee, Freedom; as a boy The rattle of thy shield at Marathon Did with a Grecian joy Through all my pulses run;
But I have learned to love thee now Without the helm upon thy gleaming brow, A maiden mild and undefiled
Like her who bore the world's redeeming child; And surely never did thy altars glance With purer fires than now in France; While, in their bright white flashes,
Wrong's shadow, backward cast, Waves cowering o'er the ashes Of the dead, blaspheming Past, O'er the shapes of fallen giants, His own unburied brood,
Whose dead hands clench defiance At the overpowering Good:
And down the happy future runs a flood Of prophesying light;
It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood,
Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud Of Brotherhood and Right.
SAID Christ our Lord, "I will go and see How the men, my brethren, believe in me." He passed not again through the gate of birth, But made himself known to the children of earth.
Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings, Behold, now, the Giver of all good things; Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state Him who alone is mighty and great."
With carpets of gold the ground they spread Wherever the Son of Man should tread,
And in palace-chambers lofty and rare
They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare.
Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him, And in church and palace, and judgment-hall, He saw his image high over all.
But still, wherever his steps they led, The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundation-stones, The son of Mary heard bitter groans.
And in church and palace, and judgment-hall, He marked great fissures that rent the wall, And opened wider and yet more wide As the living foundation heaved and sighed.
"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men?
And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?
"With gates of silver and bars of gold, Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold: I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven, these eighteen hundred years."
"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built; Behold thine images, how they stand, Sovereign and sole, through all our land.
"Our task is hard,-with sword and flame To hold thy earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep."
Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from her faintly want and sin.
These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment-hem, For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, “The images ye have made of me!”
WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON.
My name is Water: I have sped
Through strange, dark ways, untried before, By pure desire of friendship led,
Cochituate's ambassador;
He sends four royal gifts by me: Long life, health, peace, and purity.
I'm Ceres' cup-bearer; I pour,
For flowers and fruits and all their kin, Her crystal vintage, from of yore Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, Flora's Falernian ripe, since God The wine-press of the deluge trod.
In that far isle whence, iron-willed,
The New World's sires their bark unmoored, The fairies' acorn-cups I filled
Upon the toadstool's silver board,
And, 'neath Herne's oak, for Shakspeare's sight, Strewed moss and grass with diamonds bright.
No fairies in the Mayflower came, And, lightsome as I sparkle here, For Mother Bay-State, busy dame,
I've toiled and drudged this many a year, Throbbed in her engines' iron veins, Twirled myriad spindles for her gains.
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