Selections from American poetry Part 25

"Wherever outraged Nature Asks word or action brave, Wherever struggles labor, Wherever groans a slave,--

"Wherever rise the peoples, Wherever sinks a throne, The throbbing heart of Freedom finds An answer in his own.

"Knight of a better era, Without reproach or fear!

Said I not well that Bayards And Sidneys still are here?

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS

O friends! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for G.o.d And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument; Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds; Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?

Who talks of scheme and plan?

The Lord is G.o.d! He needeth not The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod: I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of G.o.d.

Ye praise His justice; even such His pitying love I deem Ye seek a king; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss; I hear our Lord's beat.i.tudes And prayer upon the cross.

The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above: I know not of His hate,--I know His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone, For vanished smiles I long, But G.o.d bath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, a.s.sured alone that life and death His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the m.u.f.fled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on sh.o.r.e.

I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee!

THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW

Pipes of the misty moorlands Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills!

Not the braes of broom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your sweetest strain!

Dear to the Lowland reaper, And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The Scottish pipes are dear;-- Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch O'er mountain, loch, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played.

Day by day the Indian tiger Louder yelled, and nearer crept; Round and round the jungle-serpent Near and nearer circles swept.

"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-- Pray to-day!" the soldier said; "To-morrow, death's between us And the wrong and shame we dread."

O, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair; And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer.

Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground "Dinna ye hear it?--dinna ye hear it?

The pipes o' Havelock sound!"

Hushed the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns.

But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true; As her mother's cradle-crooning The mountain pipes she knew.

Like the march of soundless music Through the vision of the seer, More of feeling than of hearing, Of the heart than of the ear, She knew the droning pibroch, She knew the Campbell's call "Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,-- The grandest o' them all!"

O, they listened, dumb and breathless, And they caught the sound at last; Faint and far beyond the Goomtee Rose and fell the piper's blast!

Then a burst of wild thanksgiving Mingled woman's voice and man's "G.o.d be praised!--the March of Havelock!

The piping of the clans!"

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, Stinging all the air to life.

But when the far-off dust-cloud To plaided legions grew, Full tenderly and blithesomely The pipes of rescue blew!

Round the silver domes of Lucknow, Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, Breathed the air to Britons dearest, The air of Auld Lang Syne.

O'er the cruel roll of war-drums Rose that sweet and homelike strain; And the tartan clove the turban, As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.

Dear to the corn-land reaper And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The piper's song is dear.

Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch O'er mountain, glen, and glade, But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played!

COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION

The beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of high way,--

When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm.

And there, in the golden weather, He st.i.tched and hammered and sung; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue.

Well knew the tough old Teuton Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the good-wife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale.

The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine.