232

DEATH OF AN INFANT.

A chambermaid, whose lip and eye,

And cheek, and brown hair, bright and curling,

Spoke nature's aristocracy;

And one, half groom, half seneschal,

Who bow'd me through court, bower, and hall,
From donjon-keep to turret wall,

For ten-and-sixpence sterling.

DEATH OF AN INFANT.

BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

DEATH found strange beauty on that polish'd brow,
There was a tint of rose

And dash'd it out.

On cheek and lip.

And the rose faded.

He touch'd the veins with ice,

Forth from those blue eyes

There spake a wisnful tenderness, a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence
Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of those curtaining lids

For ever. There had been a murmuring sound
With which the babe would claim its mother's ear,
Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set
The seal of silence. But there beam'd a smile,
So fix'd, so holy, from that cherub brow,

Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal
The signet-ring of heaven,

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

THERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death,

And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he;
"Have nought but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kiss'd their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves,

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled;

"Dear tokens of the earth are they,

66

Where he was once a child.

They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love ;

She knew she should find them all again

In the fields of light above.
20*

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234

DEMOCRACY.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

DEMOCRACY.

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

SPIRIT of Truth, and Love, and Light!
The foe of Wrong, and Hate, and Fraud !
Of all which pains the holy sight,

Or wounds the generous ear of GOD!

Beautiful yet thy temples rise,

Though there profaning gifts are thrown; And fires unkindled of the skies

Are glaring round thy altar-stone.

Still sacred-though thy name be breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, pluck'd from thee, are wreath'd
Around the haughty brows of Pride.

Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time!

The faith in which my father stood,

Even when the sons of Lust and Crime
Had stain'd thy peaceful courts with blood!

Still to those courts my footsteps turn,

For through the mists which darken there,

I see the flame of Freedom burn

The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!

DEMOCRACY.

The generous feeling, pure and warm,
Which owns the rights of all divine—
The pitying heart-the helping arm-

The prompt self-sacrifice-are thine.

Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,

How fade the cords of caste and birth! How equal in their suffering lie

The groaning multitudes of earth!

Still to a stricken brother true,

Whatever clime hath nurtured him; As stoop'd to heal the wounded Jew The worshipper on Gerizim.

By misery unrepell'd, unawed

By pomp or power, thou see'st a Man
In prince or peasant-slave or lord-
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.

Through all disguise, form, place, or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.

On man, as man, retaining yet,
Howe'er debased, and soil'd, and dim,

The crown upon his forehead set-
The immortal gift of God to him.

And there is reverence in thy look;
For that frail form that mortals wear
The Spirit of the Holiest took,

And veil'd his perfect brightness there.

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236

DEMOCRACY.

Not from the cold and shallow fount

Of vain philosophy thou art;
He who of old on Syria's mount

Thrill'd, awed, by turns, the listener's heart,

In holy words which cannot die,

In thoughts which angels lean'd to know,
Proclaim'd thy message from on high-
Thy mission to a world of woe.

That Voice's echo hath not died!
From the blue lake of Galilee,
And Tabor's lonely mountain side,
It calls a struggling world to thee,

Thy name and watchword o'er this land
I hear in every breeze that stirs,
And round a thousand altars stand
Thy banded Party worshippers.

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.