Standard Selections Part 26

LAUS DEO![24]

ON HEARING BELLS ANNOUNCING EMANc.i.p.aTION

JOHN G. WHITTIER

It is done!

Clang of bell and roar of gun Send the tidings up and down.

How the belfries rock and reel!

How the great guns, peal on peal, Fling the joy from town to town!

Ring, O bells!

Every stroke exulting tells Of the burial hour of crime.

Loud and long, that all may hear.

Ring for every listening ear Of Eternity and Time!

Let us kneel!

G.o.d's own voice is in that peal, And this spot is holy ground.

Lord, forgive us! What are we, That our eyes this glory see, That our ears have heard the sound!

For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad; In the earthquake he has spoken; He has smitten with his thunder The iron walls asunder, And the gates of bra.s.s are broken!

Loud and long Lift the old exulting song; Sing with Miriam by the sea He has cast the mighty down; Horse and rider sink and drown; "He hath triumphed gloriously!"

Did we dare In our agony of prayer, Ask for more than He has done?

When was ever his right hand Over any time or land Stretched as now beneath the sun!

How they pale, Ancient myth and song and tale, In this wonder of our days, When the cruel rod of war Blossoms white with righteous law, And the wrath of man is praise!

Blotted out!

All within and all about Shall a fresher life begin; Freer breathe the universe As it rolls its heavy curse On the dead and buried sin!

It is done!

In the circuit of the sun Shall the sound thereof go forth.

It shall bid the sad rejoice, It shall give the dumb a voice, It shall belt with joy the earth!

Ring and swing, Bells of joy! On morning's wing Send the song of praise abroad!

With a sound of broken chains Tell the nations that He reigns, Who alone is Lord and G.o.d!

FOOTNOTE:

[24] By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., authorized publishers of this author's works.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

The breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rockbound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky their giant branches tossed, And the heavy night hung dark the hills and waters o'er, When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England sh.o.r.e.

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came,-- Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame: Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,-- They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang; this the stars heard and the sea!

And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang to the anthems of the free!

The ocean-eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared;--this was their welcome home.

There were men with h.o.a.ry hair amidst that pilgrim band; Why had they come to wither there, away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?--They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Aye, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod!

They have left unstained what there they found,--freedom to worship G.o.d!

THE PRESENT CRISIS[25]

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from East to West; And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb, To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the th.o.r.n.y stem of time.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along Round the earth's electric circle the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or shame-- In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, G.o.d's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Backward look across the ages, and the beacon moments see That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through oblivion's sea; Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry Of those crises, G.o.d's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath pa.s.sed by.

Careless seems the great avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth G.o.d within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great; Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate!

But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din, List the ominous stern whisper from the delphic cave within, "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."

Then to side with truth is n.o.ble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the mult.i.tude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone; Stood serene and down the future, saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine By one man's plain truth to manhood and to G.o.d's supreme design.

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned, Since the first man stood G.o.d-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.