Already blushes in thy cheek The bosom-thought which thou must speak; The bird, how far it haply roam By cloud or isle, is flying home; The maiden fears, and fearing runs Into the charmed snare she shuns; And every man, in love or pride, Of his fate is never wide.

Will a woman’s fan the ocean smooth? Or prayers the stony Parcæ sooth, Or coax the thunder from its mark? Or tapers light the chaos dark? In spite of Virtue and the Muse, Nemesis will have her dues, And all our struggles and our toils Tighter wind the giant coils.

FATE.

Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes mean or great: Unknown to Cromwell as to me Was Cromwell’s measure or degree; Unknown to him, as to his horse, If he than his groom be better or worse. He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs, With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares, Till late he learned, through doubt and fear, Broad England harboured not his peer: Obeying Time, the last to own The Genius from its cloudy throne. For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified; Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same Genius that creates.

FREEDOM.

Once I wished I might rehearse Freedom’s pæan in my verse, That the slave who caught the strain Should throb until he snapped his chain. But the Spirit said, ‘Not so; Speak it not, or speak it low; Name not lightly to be said, Gift too precious to be prayed, Passion not to be expressed But by heaving of the breast: Yet,—wouldst thou the mountain find Where this deity is shrined, Who gives to seas and sunset skies Their unspent beauty of surprise, And, when it lists him, waken can Brute or savage into man; Or, if in thy heart he shine, Blends the starry fates with thine, Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee, And makes thy thoughts archangels be; Freedom’s secret wilt thou know?— Counsel not with flesh and blood; Loiter not for cloak or food; Right thou feelest, rush to do.’

ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857.

O tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire; One morn is in the mighty heaven, And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to town, Our pulses are not less, The joy-bells chime their tidings down, Which children’s voices bless.

For He that flung the broad blue fold O’er-mantling land and sea, One third part of the sky unrolled For the banner of the free.

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