"Or is it for a younger, fairer corse,

That gathered States for children round his knees, That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse, Feller of forests, linker of the seas,

Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?

66

'What make we, murmur'st thou ? and what are we?

When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, The time-old web of the implacable Three:

Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud? Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it-why not he?"

"Is there no hope?" I moaned, "so strong, so fair! Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile

No rival's swoop in all our western air!
Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file
For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair?

"Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames!
I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned
The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims
Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sand ?
Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names ?"

"When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew,
Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain :
Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true
To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain?
Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew.

"Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge. Will

These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third-
Obedience-'tis the great tap-root that still,
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost
skill.

"Is the doom sealed for Hesper ? 'Tis not we
Denounce it, but the Law before all time:
The brave makes danger opportunity;

The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime,
Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be?
"Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat
To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw?
Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet
Than Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law?
Then let him hearken for the doomster's feet!
"Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock,
States climb to power by; slippery those with gold
Down which they stumble to eternal mock:
No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold,
Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.
"We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe,
Mystic because too cheaply understood;
Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know,
See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good,
Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow.

"Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
That offers choice of glory or of gloom;
The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.
But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb
Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss."
"But not for him," I cried, "not yet for him,
Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim
The sunset shuts the world with golden bar,
Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim!
"His shall be larger manhood, saved for those
That walk unblenching through the trial-fires;
Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes,
And he no base-born son of craven sires,
Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes.

Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win Death's royal purple in the foeman's lines; Peace, too, brings tears; and 'mid the battle-din The wiser ear some text of God divines,

For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin.

"God give us peace !-not such as lulls to sleep, But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit ! And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,

Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit,

And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap!"

So cried I with clenched hands and passionate pain,
Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side;
Again the loon laughed mocking, and again
The echoes bayed far down the night and died,
While, waking, I recalled my wandering brain.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

IN STATE.

I.

O KEEPER of the sacred Key,
And the Great Seal of Destiny,
Whose eye is the blue canopy,

Look down upon the warring world, and tell us what

the end will be.

"Lo, through the wintry atmosphere, On the white bosom of the sphere,

A cluster of five lakes appear;

And all the land looks like a couch, or warrior's shield, or sheeted bier.

"And on that vast and hollow field,
With both lips closed and both eyes sealed,
A mighty figure is revealed-

Stretched at full length, and stiff and stark, as in the hollow of a shield.

"The winds have tied the drifted snow Around the face and chin; and lo,

The sceptred giants come and go,

And shake their shadowy crowns and say: 'We always feared it would be so !'

"She came of an heroic race:

A giant's strength, a maiden's grace,
Like two in one seem to embrace,

And match, and blend, and thorough-blend, in her colossal form and face.

"Where can her dazzling falchion be? One hand is fallen in the sea;

The Gulf Stream drifts it far and free;

And in that hand her shining brand gleams from the depths resplendently.

"And by the other, in its rest, The starry banner of the West Is clasped forever to her breast;

And of her silver helmet, lo! a soaring eagle is the

crest.

"And on her brow a softened light,

As of a star concealed from sight

By some thin veil of fleecy white,

Or of the rising moon behind the rainy vapors of the night.

"The sisterhood that was so sweet, The starry system sphered complete, Which the mazed Orient used to greet,

The four-and-thirty fallen stars glimmer and glitter

at her feet.

"And over her-and over all,

For panoply and coronal

The mighty Immemorial,

And everlasting canopy, and starry arch, and shield of all.

II.

"Three cold bright moons have marched and wheeled,

And the white cerement that revealed

A figure stretched upon a shield,

Is turned to verdure; and the land is now one mighty battle-field.

66 'And lo! the children which she bred,

And more than all else cherished,

To make them true in heart and head,

Stand face to face, as mortal foes, with their swords crossed above the dead.

"Each hath a mighty stroke and stride :

One true, the more that he is tried;

The other dark and evil-eyed;

And by the hand of one of them his own dear mother surely died!

"A stealthy step, a gleam of hell,—

It is the simple truth to tell:

The son stabbed, and the mother fell;

And so she lies, all mute and pale, and pure and irreproachable !

"And then the battle-trumpet blew;

And the true brother sprang and drew
His blade to smite the traitor through;

And so they clashed above the bier, and the night. sweated bloody dew.