THE YOUNG EARTH.

The fragment of a grander day
Unmeasured by the sun;

Too short to purify the sight
Of souls in Error blind -

Too short to show the healing light
Of Love to all mankind.

For lo! the lesson has been read

In

every clime and tongue;

The Sea has breathed it from her bed,
And Earth and Air have sung.

The Sun has beam'd it from above
To all his worlds around;

The Stars have preached that God is Love:
But answer never found.

The generations, cold and dark,
Have lived and pass'd away,
And never caught the faintest spark
Of Love's eternal ray.

The myriads, seeking to create

An idol to adore,

Have made their God a God of Hate,
And worshipp'd him with gore.

And living multitudes have heard
That Love is Nature's plan;

Yet shut their souls against the Word
That teaches love to man.

183

But there is progress in the spheres,
The glorious Earth is young;
The seed has lain six thousand years,
The tender shoots have sprung.

She is not old, but young and fair;
And marching to her prime,
Her teeming bosom yet shall bear

The harvest of her time.

And generations — thought-endued,

Each wiser than the last,

Shall crowd, in one short year, the good
Of centuries of the past;

Shall, living, aid by loving deeds

The truth for which we pine, And, dying, sow the fruitful seeds Of Progress more divine.

The struggle long and sorely fought

Embitter'd as it spread

For simplest rights-free hand, free thought, And sustenance of bread:

The struggle of the righteous weak
Against th' unrighteous strong-
Of Justice firm, though mild and meek,
Against oppressive Wrong-

Draws in, and must be ended yet —
It ripens to its hour:

THE YOUNG EARTH.

The mighty combatants have met;
And Truth has challenged Power.

Young Earth! - her sad six thousand years
Now passing swift away,

Are but her infancy of tears

The dawn before the day.

185

A PLEA FOR THE LIVING.

Who knows how many a potentate of mind
Has lived a stranger on the callous earth,
Nor left a name or memory behind?

How many an art has perish'd in its birth,
That might have changed the fortunes of mankind,
And re-imparadised us? Who shall tell
All we have lost? What bliss ineffable
Has shone before us — we remaining blind,
Or hostile and indifferent to the light?

Who tell what thoughts, that might have stirr'd the

zones,

Have died unheard, because we deem'd it right
To raise great cenotaphs o'er dead men's bones,
And starve the quick? or what millennia bright,
Our studied scorn of living worth postpones ›

FREEDOM AND LAW.

WILDEST Wind that shakes the blossoms,
Or on ocean chafes and swells,
Blows not uncontroll'd and wanton,
But as Law compels.

Streams that wander and meander,
Loitering in the meads to play,
Or that burst in roaring torrents
Into foam and spray.

Avalanches, forest-crushing,

Fires that rage in Etna's breast,
Lava-floods and tides of ocean,
All obey the same behest.

Law releases, Law restrains them :— Lo! the Moon, her forehead bent Earthward, makes her revolution, Docile, beauteous, and content.

Lo! the Earth, her mighty mistress,
In her own appointed place,