Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete

THE EVE OF ELECTION.

     FROM gold to gray
     Our mild sweet day
     Of Indian Summer fades too soon;
     But tenderly
     Above the sea
     Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.

     In its pale fire,
     The village spire
     Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;
     The painted walls
     Whereon it falls
     Transfigured stand in marble trance!

     O'er fallen leaves
     The west-wind grieves,
     Yet comes a seed-time round again;
     And morn shall see
     The State sown free
     With baleful tares or healthful grain.

     Along the street
     The shadows meet
     Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
     The moulds of fate
     That shape the State,
     And make or mar the common weal.

     Around I see
     The powers that be;
     I stand by Empire's primal springs;
     And princes meet,
     In every street,
     And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!

     Hark! through the crowd
     The laugh runs loud,
     Beneath the sad, rebuking moon.
     God save the land
     A careless hand
     May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!

     No jest is this;
     One cast amiss
     May blast the hope of Freedom's year.
     Oh, take me where
     Are hearts of prayer,
     And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!

     Not lightly fall
     Beyond recall
     The written scrolls a breath can float;
     The crowning fact
     The kingliest act
     Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!

     For pearls that gem
     A diadem
     The diver in the deep sea dies;
     The regal right
     We boast to-night
     Is ours through costlier sacrifice;

     The blood of Vane,
     His prison pain
     Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod,
     And hers whose faith
     Drew strength from death,
     And prayed her Russell up to God!

     Our hearts grow cold,
     We lightly hold
     A right which brave men died to gain;
     The stake, the cord,
     The axe, the sword,
     Grim nurses at its birth of pain.

     The shadow rend,
     And o'er us bend,
     O martyrs, with your crowns and palms;
     Breathe through these throngs
     Your battle songs,
     Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms.

     Look from the sky,
     Like God's great eye,
     Thou solemn moon, with searching beam,
     Till in the sight
     Of thy pure light
     Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.

     Shame from our hearts
     Unworthy arts,
     The fraud designed, the purpose dark;
     And smite away
     The hands we lay
     Profanely on the sacred ark.

     To party claims
     And private aims,
     Reveal that august face of Truth,
     Whereto are given
     The age of heaven,
     The beauty of immortal youth.

     So shall our voice
     Of sovereign choice
     Swell the deep bass of duty done,
     And strike the key
     Of time to be,
     When God and man shall speak as one!

     1858.