These wait their doom, from that great law Which makes the past time serve to-day; And fresher life the world shall draw From their decay.
O backward-looking son of time! The new is old, the old is new, The cycle of a change sublime Still sweeping through.
So wisely taught the Indian seer; Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, Who wake by turn Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same.
Idly as thou, in that old day Thou mournest, did thy sire repine; So, in his time, thy child grown gray Shall sigh for thine.
But life shall on and upward go; The eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats.
Take heart!--the Waster builds again,-- A charmèd life old Goodness hath; The tares may perish,--but the grain Is not for death.
God works in all things; all obey His first propulsion from the night: Wake thou and watch!--the world is gray With morning light!
WRITTEN WHILE IN PRISON FOR DENOUNCING THE DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE.
High walls and huge the body may confine, And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze, And massive bolts may baffle his design, And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways; But scorns the immortal mind such base control: No chains can bind it and no cell enclose. Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole, And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes. It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to vale It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers; It visits home to hear the fireside tale And in sweet converse pass the joyous hours; 'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar, And in its watches wearies every star.
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 thorny stem of Time.
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart. And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart.