THE SINGER IN THE PRISON 1 O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison, Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard, Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing, 2 O sight of pity, gloom, and dole! The sun was low in the west one winter day, When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land, Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes.) All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation's criminal mass, Calmly a Lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child by either hand, Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform, She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude, 3 THE HYMN. A Soul, confined by bars and bands, Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands; Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest. O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! Ceaseless she paces to and fro; O sight of pity, gloom, and dole! O Life! no life, but bitter dole! Convict no more-nor shame, nor dole! 10 4 The singer ceas'd; One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o'er all those upturn'd faces; Strange sea of prison faces-a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces; Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them, While her gown touch'd them, rustling in the silence, She vanish'd with her children in the dusk. 5 While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr'd, (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,) A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute, 50 With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow'd, and moved to weeping, And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home, The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy childhood, The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence; -A wondrous minute then-But after, in the solitary night, to many, many there, Years after-even in the hour of death-the sad refrain-the tune, the voice, the words, Resumed the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle, O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! 60 1870. ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS (A REMINISCENCE OF 1864.) 1 Who are you, dusky woman, so ancient, hardly human, With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet? 2 ('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sand and pines, Forth from thy hovel door, thou, Ethiopia, com'st to me, As, under doughty Sherman, I march toward the sea.) 3 Me, master, years a hundred, since from my parents sunder'd, 4 No further does she say, but lingering all the day, Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye, 5 What is it, fateful woman-so blear, hardly human? 30 And now, gentlemen, THE BASE OF ALL METAPHYSICS A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics. (So, to the students, the old professor, At the close of his crowded course.) Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems, Kant having studied and stated-Fichte and Schelling and Hegel, Stated the lore of Plato-and Socrates, greater than Plato, And greater than Socrates sought and stated-Christ divine having studied long, I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems, See the philosophies all-Christian churches and tenets see, Yet underneath Socrates clearly see-and underneath Christ the divine I see, Of city for city, and land for land. 10. O STAR OF FRANCE! 1870-71. 1870. O Star of France! The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame, Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long, Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale-a mastless hulk; Orb not of France alone-pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, Of aspirations toward the far ideal-enthusiast's dreams of brotherhood, Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee; And left thee sacred. In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedst highly, In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the price, In that thou surely wakedṣt weeping from thy drugg'd sleep, 20 In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee, In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains, This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet, The spear thrust in thy side, 4 O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long! Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself, Finish'd the days, the clouds dispell'd, The travail o'er, the long-sought_extrication When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world, (In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours, Columbia,) Again thy star, O France-fair, lustrous star, In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever, First published in "As a Strong Bird," 1872. A CAROL CLOSING SIXTY-NINE A carol closing sixty-nine-a résumé—a repetition, Of you, my Land-your rivers, prairies, States-you, mottled Flag I love, Of me myself-the jocund heart yet beating in my breast, The body wreck'd, old, poor and paralyzed-the strange inertia falling pall-like round me, The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct, The undiminish'd faith-the groups of loving friends. GOOD-BYE MY FANCY! Good-bye my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love! I'm going away, I know not where, Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again, Now for my last-let me look back a moment; The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me, Long have we lived, joy'd, caress'd together; Yet let me not be too hasty, Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really blended into one; If we go anywhere we'll go together to meet what happens, May-be we'll be better off and blither, and learn something, May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who knows?) RICHARD HENRY STODDARD THE WITCH'S WHELP Along the shore the slimy brine-pits yawn, Covered with thick green scum; the billows rise, And fill them to the brim with clouded foam, And then subside, and leave the scum again. The ribbed sand is full of hollow gulfs, Where monsters from the waters come and lie. Great serpents bask at noon along the To me no terror; coil on coil they roll 8 It threatens to engulf the trembling isle. I seek the blasted wood whose barkless trunks Are bleached with summer suns; the Felled by the winds; through briery undergrowth They slide with hissing tongues, beneath my feet 30 To writhe, or in my fingers squeezed to There is a wild and solitary pine, Something imprisoned in its wrinkled bark Wails for its freedom; when the bigger light Burns in mid-heaven, and dew elsewhere is dried, There it still falls; the quivering leaves And load the air with syllables of woe. 41 And falling cones did pelt me sharp as hail : I picked the seeds that grew between their plates, And strung them round my neck with seamew eggs. Hard by are swamps and marshes, reedy fens Knee deep in water; monsters wade therein Thick-set with plated scales; sometimes in troops They crawl on slippery banks; sometimes they lash The sluggish waves among themselves at war. Often I heave great rocks from off the Deep in their drowsy eyes, at which they howl And chase me inland; then I mount their humps And prick them back again, unwieldy, slow. At night the wolves are howling round the place, And bats sail there athwart the silver light, |