Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men, following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

His shatter’d Empire thunders to the ground:
A myriad hearts peal laughter as it falls,
While red flags flutter on its ruined walls
And living joy darts all the world around.
The imperial criminal, naked and uncrowned,
Breathing a shuddering air of curses, crawls,
Baffled and beaten, from his gorgeous halls,
While Vengeance halloos lapdog, cur and hound.

Behold the arrogant humbled, and rejoice
The grasping hand holds naught but flying dust,
And Envy meets the pitiless grin of Fate.
Take warning of your own heart’s inward voice,
Bid your own soul be humble and distrust
The yelping promises of greed and hate.

Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,
    But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.
After the first compassion, none will spare
    Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.
She pleads for respite, - she will come ere long
When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.


Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by
    Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.
Much must be done before the brief light die;
    She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.
With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,
She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.


But when she fills her days with duties done,
    Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.
New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,
    And life still holds for her unbounded we...

Those men are deemed heroes who rush on the foe
Regardless of danger, and seek not to know
What others may do;
Stern duty demands it--why should they falter
If all they hold dear is laid on the altar,
And conscience be true?

The greatest of all is the man who can say
When battle is over and foe gained the day,
"The fault was in me:
My plan miscarried through miscalculation;
On me rests the blame, and not on the nation:
My soldiers are free."

In George Stewart White, and men of like mind,
Our nation can rest, for in them you will find
A true manliness;
Their failures acknowledged are failures no more;
Defeat to such men only opens the door
To future success.

I know in part, but know not all,
The part I know is known;
What know I not I hope with Paul
To know before the throne.
Till then where knowledge fails I trust
The truth God has revealed,
As known by me, forever must
Be like the truth concealed.

I know God is, tho' hid from sight,
And know He cares for me;
In blessing me He takes delight,
And I by faith can see
His skilful hand and loving heart,
In all my life's affairs,
And feel content to know but part
If He knows all my cares.

I know God gave His Son to die
A sacrifice for man,
And live all who on Him rely,
And meet His claims I can,
Yet I know not how in Him meet
The human and divine;
But God He is, and at His feet
I fall, and feel Him mine.

Nor do ...

        "Tim Thompson, a little negro boy, was asked to dance for the amusement of some white toughs. He refused, saying he was a church member. One of the men knocked him down with a club and then danced upon his prostrate form. He then shot the boy in the hip. The boy is dead; his murderer is still at large."
    - News Item.

He lifted up his pleading eyes,
    And scanned each cruel face,
Where cold and brutal cowardice
    Had left its evil trace.

It was when tender memories
    Round Beth'lem's manger lay,
And mothers told their little ones
    Of Jesu's natal day.

And of the Magi from the East
    Who came their gifts to bring,
And bow in rev'rence at the feet
    Of Salem's new-born King.

And how the herald angels sang
    The ...

I' vo pensando, e nel pensier m' assale.

SELF-CONFLICT.


    Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thought
So strong a pity for myself appears,
That often it has brought
My harass'd heart to new yet natural tears;
Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,
Instant in prayer, I ask of God the wings
With which the spirit springs,
Freed from its mortal coil, to bliss on high;
But nothing, to this hour, prayer, tear, or sigh,
Whatever man could do, my hopes sustain:
And so indeed in justice should it be;
Able to stay, who went and fell, that he
Should prostrate, in his own despite, remain.
But, lo! the tender arms
In which I trust are open to me still,
Though fears my bosom fill
Of others' fate, and my own heart alarms,
Which...

The great men framed the fierce decrees
Embroiling State with State;
They bit their thumbs across the seas
In diplomatic hate;
They lit the pyre whose glare and heat
Make Hell itself seem cold;
The flames bloomed red above the wheat,
Their wild profusion wreathed the street,
Then in the smoke and fiery sleet
The common men took hold.

Where Babel was with Bedlam freed,
And wide the gates were flung;
To chaos, while the anarch breed
In all the world gave tongue,
The common men in close array,
By mountain, plain and sea,
Went outward girded for the fray,
On one dear quest, whate'er they pay
In blood and pain, the open way
To keep for Liberty.

The common men who never tire,
Unsightly in the mirk
Of caking blood and smoke a...

The lowliest born of all the land,
He wrung from Fate's reluctant hand
The gifts which happier boyhood claims;
And, tasting on a thankless soil
The bitter bread of unpaid toil,
He fed his soul with noble aims.

And Nature, kindly provident,
To him the future's promise lent;
The powers that shape man's destinies,
Patience and faith and toil, he knew,
The close horizon round him grew,
Broad with great possibilities.

By the low hearth-fire's fitful blaze
He read of old heroic days,
The sage's thought, the patriot's speech;
Unhelped, alone, himself he taught,
His school the craft at which he wrought,
His lore the book within his, reach.

He felt his country's need; he knew
The work her children had to do;
And when, at last, he h...

When, ere the tangled web is reft,
The kid-gloved villain scowls and sneers,
And hapless innocence is left
With no assets save sighs and tears,

'Tis then, just then, that in there stalks
The hero, watchful of her needs;
He talks, Great heavens how he talks!
But we forgive him, for his deeds.

Life is the drama here to-day
And Death the villain of the plot.
It is a realistic play.
Shall it end well or shall it not?

The hero? Oh, the hero's part
Is vacant to be played by you.
Then act it well! An orphan's heart
May beat the lighter if you do.

Who'll dive for the dead men now,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll feel for the anguished brow,
Since Colin is gone?
True Feeling is not confined
To the learned or lordly mind;
Nor can it be bought and sold
In exchange for an Alp of gold;
For Nature, that never lies,
Flings back with indignant scorn
The counterfeit deed, still-born,
In the face of the seeming wise,
In the Janus face of the huckster race
Who barter her truths for lies.

Who'll wrestle with dangers dire,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave,
Thoughtless of self, human life to save,
Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?
Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire,
Since Colin is gone?
Or hang his life on so frail a breath
That there's but a step 't...

"It is a foolish thing," said I,
"To bear with such, and pass it by;
Yet so I do, I know not why!"

And at each clash I would surmise
That if I had acted otherwise
I might have saved me many sighs.

But now the only happiness
In looking back that I possess -
Whose lack would leave me comfortless -

Is to remember I refrained
From masteries I might have gained,
And for my tolerance was disdained;

For see, a tomb. And if it were
I had bent and broke, I should not dare
To linger in the shadows there.

Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone,
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on",
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And,Hey then up go we!

A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!

And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end:
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders on their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!
<...

    March 13, 1881.

As one who feels the breathless nightmare grip
His heart-strings, and through visioned horrors fares,
Now on a thin-ledged chasm's rock-crumbling lip,
Now on a tottering pinnacle that dare
The front of heaven, while always unawares
Weird monsters start above, around, beneath,
Each glaring from some uglier mask of death,


So the White Czar imperial progress made
Through terror-haunted days.    A shock, a cry
Whose echoes ring the globe - the spectre's laid.
Hurled o'er the abyss, see the crowned martyr lie
Resting in peace - fear, change, and death gone by.
Fit end for nightmare - mist of blood and tears,
Red climax to the slow, abortive years.


The world draws breath - one long, deep-shuddering sigh,
At that whic...

Virtue conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best:
But never shall the Muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure;
Or suffer Envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;
Your steady soul preserves her frame,
In good and evil times, the same.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,
Stand in your sacred presence awed;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.
    Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;[2]
And happy he who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want and not repine.
The man who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is r...

    "Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;
    Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
    Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
    And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
    And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
    I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
    Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
    In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.
    And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,
    And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,
    And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:
    "Deny your God, and we will give you life."

    Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet!
    And it is hard in youth and hope to die;
    And there my comrades dear lay at my feet,
    And in that blear of blood soon must...

Night closed around the conqueror's way,
    And lightnings showed the distant hill,
Where those who lost that dreadful day,
    Stood few and faint, but fearless still.
The soldier's hope, the patriot's zeal,
    For ever dimmed, for ever crost--
Oh! who shall say what heroes feel,
    When all but life and honor's lost?

The last sad hour of freedom's dream,
    And valor's task, moved slowly by,
While mute they watcht, till morning's beam
    Should rise and give them light to die.
There's yet a world, where souls are free,
    Where tyrants taint not nature's bliss;--
If death that world's bright opening be,
    Oh! who would live a slave in this?

(For Jack)


In a little ship and down the bay,
Out to the calling sea,
A young brave lad sailed off today,
To the one great war went he:
The one long war all men must know
Greater than land or gold,
Soul is the prince and flesh the foe
Of a kingdom Christ will hold.

With arms of faith and hope well-wrought
The brave lad went away,
And the voice of Christ fills all his thought,
Under two hands that pray:
The tender love of a mother's hands
That guarded all his years,
Fitted the armor, plate and bands,
And blessed them with her tears.


Older than Rhodes and Ascalon
And the farthest forts of sea,
Is the Master voice that calls him on
From the hills in Galilee:
From hills where Christ in gentle guise
Called...