FROM gold to gray Our mild sweet day Of Indian Summer fades too soon; But tenderly Above the sea Hangs, white and calm, the hunter’s moon. In its pale fire, The village spire Shows like the zodiac’s spectral lance; The painted walls Whereon it falls Transfigured stand in marble trance! O’er fallen leaves The west-wind […]

“The thing which has the most dissevered the people from the Pope,–the unforgivable thing,–the breaking point between him and them,–has been the encouragement and promotion he gave to the officer under whom were executed the slaughters of Perugia. That made the breaking point in many honest hearts that had clung to him before.”–HARRIET BEECHER STOWE’S […]

ACROSS the sea I heard the groans Of nations in the intervals Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones, And sucked by priestly cannibals. I dreamed of Freedom slowly gained By martyr meekness, patience, faith, And lo! an athlete grimly stained, With corded muscles battle-strained, Shouting it […]

WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth In blue Brazilian skies; And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth From sunset to sunrise, From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves Thy joy’s long anthem pour. Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves Shall shame thy pride no more. No […]

THE day’s sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how! As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire. Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first Be strong, my heart, to know the […]

“PUT up the sword!” The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon’s roar, O’er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped With nameless dead; o’er cities starving slow Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe Down which a groaning diapason runs […]

I. NOT without envy Wealth at times must look On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam; All who, by skill and patience, anyhow Make service noble, and the earth redeem From savageness. By kingly accolade Than […]

In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custer and his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one of the fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow’s poem on the massacre, these lines will be remembered:– “Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face, “Revenge upon all the race Of the White Chief with […]

Read at Woodstock, Conn., July 4,1883. WE give thy natal day to hope, O Country of our love and prayer I Thy way is down no fatal slope, But up to freer sun and air. Tried as by furnace-fires, and yet By God’s grace only stronger made, In future tasks before thee set Thou shalt […]

“Jove means to settle Astraea in her seat again, And let down from his golden chain An age of better metal.” BEN JONSON, 1615. O POET rare and old! Thy words are prophecies; Forward the age of gold, The new Saturnian lies. The universal prayer And hope are not in vain; Rise, brothers! and prepare […]

Supposed to be written by the chairman of the “Central Clique” at Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which resulted in the defeat of the […]

Late President of Western Reserve College, who died at his post of duty, overworn by his strenuous labors with tongue and pen in the cause of Human Freedom. Thou hast fallen in thine armor, Thou martyr of the Lord With thy last breath crying “Onward!” And thy hand upon the sword. The haughty heart derideth, […]

ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY, SECRETARY OF THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN’S ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. Gone before us, O our brother, To the spirit-land! Vainly look we for another In thy place to stand. Who shall offer youth and beauty On the wasting shrine Of a stern and lofty duty, With a faith like thine? […]

“Get the writings of John Woolman by heart.”–Essays of Elia. Maiden! with the fair brown tresses Shading o’er thy dreamy eye, Floating on thy thoughtful forehead Cloud wreaths of its sky. Youthful years and maiden beauty, Joy with them should still abide,– Instinct take the place of Duty, Love, not Reason, guide. Ever in the […]

William Leggett, who died in 1839 at the age of thirty-seven, was the intrepid editor of the New York Evening Post and afterward of The Plain Dealer. His vigorous assault upon the system of slavery brought down upon him the enmity of political defenders of the system. “Ye build the tombs of the prophets.”–Holy Writ. […]

How smiled the land of France Under thy blue eye’s glance, Light-hearted rover Old walls of chateaux gray, Towers of an early day, Which the Three Colors play Flauntingly over. Now midst the brilliant train Thronging the banks of Seine Now midst the splendor Of the wild Alpine range, Waking with change on change Thoughts […]

Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. I., on the 1st of 8th mo., 1841, aged twenty-four years. They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, That all of thee we loved and cherished Has with thy summer roses perished; And left, as its young beauty fled, An ashen memory in its stead, The twilight of a […]

ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE “FUTURE STATE.” Charles Follen, one of the noblest contributions of Germany to American citizenship, was at an early age driven from his professorship in the University of Jena, and compelled to seek shelter from official prosecution in Switzerland, on account of his liberal political opinions. He became Professor of […]

John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston. Not as a poor requital of the joy With which my childhood heard that lay of thine, Which, like an echo of the song divine At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy, Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,– Not to the poet, but the […]

Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas Chalkley, an eminent minister of the Friends’ denomination. He was one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Journal, which was published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a life of unostentatious and simple goodness. He was the master of […]