strife; The vexing gnats of every day. Is mightier than the fiercest shock; The constant fall of water-drops Will groove the adamantine rock; We feel our noblest powers decay, In feeble wars with every day. We rise to meet a heavy blow Our souls a sudden bravery fills But we endure not always so The drop-by-drop of little ills! We still deplore and still obey The hard behests of every day. The heart which boldly faces death Upon the battle-field, and dares Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath The needle-points of frets and cares; The stoutest spirits they dismayThe tiny stings of every day. Then angrily the people cried, Our goods suffice us as they are; And since they could not so avail test But, though they slew him with the sword, And in a fire his touchstone burned, Its doings could not be o'erturned, Its undoings restored. And when, to stop all future harm, They strewed its ashes on the breeze; They little guessed each grain of these "The loss outweighs the profit far; | Conveyed the perfect charm. AUTUMNAL SONNET. Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods, And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt, And night by night the monitory blast Wails in the keyhole, telling how it passed O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes, Or grim, wide wave; and now the power is felt Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve. As when in watches of the night we see, Hanging in tremulous beauty o'er the bed, The face we loved on Earth, now from us fled; So wan, so sweet, so spiritually free From taint of Earth, thy tender drawings be. There we may find a friend remembered; With a new aureole hovering round the head, Given by Art's peaceful immortality. How many homes half empty fill the place Death vacates, with thy gracious substitutes! Not sensuous with color, which may disgrace The memory of the body shared with brutes; But the essential spirit in the face; As angels see us, best, Affection suits. TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, AFTER THE WAR. Он! happiest thou, who from the shining height, Of tablelands serene can look below Where glared the tempest, and the lightning's glow, And see thy seed made harvest wave in light, And all the darkened land with God's smile bright! Leaving with him the issue. Enough to know Albeit the sword hath sundered brothers so, Yet Nor God's vicegerent ever is the will he leave us bleeding, but Which healeth all things will our wounds make whole. While washed and cleansed of our fraternal crime, Freedom shall count again her starry roll; All there, and moving with a step sublime To music God sounds in the human soul. |