Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 44

THE DREAM OF PIO NONO.

IT chanced that while the pious troops of France Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands (The Hun and Aaron meet for such a Moses), Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious Rome To bless the ministry of Oudinot, And sanctify his iron homilies And sharp persuasions of the bayonet, That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed.

He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sun Of the bight Orient; and beheld the lame, The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master's feet, And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all, Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise From heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song, He heard the blessed angels sing of peace, Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord.

Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face Hardened and darkened by fierce summer suns And hot winds of the desert, closer drew His fisher's haick, and girded up his loins, And spake, as one who had authority "Come thou with me."

Lakeside and eastern sky And the sweet song of angels pa.s.sed away, And, with a dream's alacrity of change, The priest, and the swart fisher by his side, Beheld the Eternal City lift its domes And solemn fanes and monumental pomp Above the waste Campagna. On the hills The blaze of burning villas rose and fell, And momently the mortar's iron throat Roared from the trenches; and, within the walls, Sharp crash of sh.e.l.ls, low groans of human pain, Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell, And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound, Half wail and half defiance. As they pa.s.sed The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood Flowed ankle-high about them, and dead men Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles,-- A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh, From which at times, quivered a living hand, And white lips moved and moaned. A father tore His gray hairs, by the body of his son, In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering sh.e.l.l.

Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seen The blessed Master and His works of love; Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels sing Above this open h.e.l.l? Thou G.o.d's high-priest!

Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace!

Thou the successor of His chosen ones!

I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, In the dear Master's name, and for the love Of His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, Alien and separate from His holy faith, Wide as the difference between death and life, The hate of man and the great love of G.o.d!

Hence, and repent!"

Thereat the pontiff woke, Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream.

"What means he?" cried the Bourbon, "Nothing more Than that your majesty hath all too well Catered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth, The Holy Father's supper troubleth him,"

Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile.

1853.

THE VOICES.

WHY urge the long, unequal fight, Since Truth has fallen in the street, Or lift anew the trampled light, Quenched by the heedless million's feet?

"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake The fools who know not ill from good Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take Thine ease among the mult.i.tude.

"Live out thyself; with others share Thy proper life no more; a.s.sume The unconcern of sun and air, For life or death, or blight or bloom.

"The mountain pine looks calmly on The fires that scourge the plains below, Nor heeds the eagle in the sun The small birds piping in the snow!

"The world is G.o.d's, not thine; let Him Work out a change, if change must be The hand that planted best can trim And nurse the old unfruitful tree."

So spake the Tempter, when the light Of sun and stars had left the sky; I listened, through the cloud and night, And beard, methought, a voice reply:

"Thy task may well seem over-hard, Who scatterest in a thankless soil Thy life as seed, with no reward Save that which Duty gives to Toil.

"Not wholly is thy heart resigned To Heaven's benign and just decree, Which, linking thee with all thy kind, Transmits their joys and griefs to thee.

"Break off that sacred chain, and turn Back on thyself thy love and care; Be thou thine own mean idol, burn Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.

"Released from that fraternal law Which shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this.

"The meal unshared is food unblest Thou h.o.a.rd'st in vain what love should spend; Self-ease is pain; thy only rest Is labor for a worthy end;

"A toil that gains with what it yields, And scatters to its own increase, And hears, while sowing outward fields, The harvest-song of inward peace.

"Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run, Free s.h.i.+nes for all the healthful ray; The still pool stagnates in the sun, The lurid earth-fire haunts decay.

"What is it that the crowd requite Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies?

And but to faith, and not to sight, The walls of Freedom's temple rise?

"Yet do thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day; And, if denied the victor's meed, Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.

"Faith shares the future's promise; Love's Self-offering is a triumph won; And each good thought or action moves The dark world nearer to the sun.

"Then faint not, falter not, nor plead Thy weakness; truth itself is strong; The lion's strength, the eagle's speed, Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.

"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, To place or gain finds out its way, Hath power to seek the highest good, And duty's holiest call obey!

"Strivest thou in darkness?--Foes without In league with traitor thoughts within; Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin?

"Hast thou not, on some week of storm, Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair, And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form The curtains of its tent of prayer?

"So, haply, when thy task shall end, The wrong shall lose itself in right, And all thy week-day darkness blend With the long Sabbath of the light!"

1854.

THE NEW EXODUS.

Written upon hearing that slavery had been formally abolished in Egypt.

Unhappily, the professions and pledges of the vacillating government of Egypt proved unreliable.

BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand, And through the parted waves, From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, G.o.d led the Hebrew slaves!

Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, As Egypt's statues cold, In the adytum of the sacred book Now stands that marvel old.

"Lo, G.o.d is great!" the simple Moslem says.

We seek the ancient date, Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase A dead one: "G.o.d was great!"

And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, We dream of wonders past, Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, Each drowsier than the last.

O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids Stretches once more that hand, And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand.

And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human smile.

Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves.

No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod; Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of G.o.d.