O, ideal of my boyhood's time! The faith in which my father stood, Even when the sons of Lust and Crime Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood! Still to those courts my footsteps turn, For through the mists which darken there, The generous feeling, pure and warm, Beneath thy broad, impartial eye, How fade the lines of caste and birth! Still to a stricken brother true, Whatever clime hath nurtured him; As stooped to heal the wounded Jew The worshipper of Gerizim. By misery unrepelled, unawed By pomp or power, thou see'st a MAN Through all disguise, form, place, or name, Thou lookest on the man within. On man, as man, retaining yet, Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim, The crown upon his forehead set The immortal gift of God to him. And there is reverence in thy look; And veiled his perfect brightness there. Not from the shallow babbling fount Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's heart, In holy words which cannot die, In thoughts which angels leaned to know, That voice's echo hath not died! Thy name and watchword o'er this land Not to these altars of a day, At party's call, my gift I bring; But on thy olden shrine I lay A freeman's dearest offering:— The voiceless utterance of his will His pledge to Freedom and to Truth, That manhood's heart remembers still The homage of his generous youth. Election Day, 1843. TO RONGE. STRIKE home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel. Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then Plant, as they may, that better tree, whose fruit His hands, for whom thou claim'st the freedom of the mind! CHALKLEY HALL.39 How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze To him who flies From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam, Till far behind him like a hideous dream The close dark city lies! Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din Oh! once again revive, while on my ear And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away, Once more let God's green earth and sunset air Through weary years of toil and strife and ill, And well do time and place befit my Beneath the arms mood: Of this embracing wood, a good man made Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years, Turned from the share he guided, and in rain Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas, He came to meet his children and to bless And here his neighbors gathered in to greet Safe from the wave and the destroying gales, To hear the good man tell of simple truth, Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle, How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales, Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven, How the sad captive listened to the Word, Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt How the armed warrior sate him down to hear And the proud ruler and his Creole dame, Oh, far away beneath New England's sky, Following my plough by Merrimack's green shore, |