.

.
My task is done.

The Showman and his show, Themselves but shadows, into shadows go; And, if no song of idlesse I have sung.
Nor tints of beauty on the canvas flung; If the harsh numbers grate on tender ears, And the rough picture overwrought appears, With deeper coloring, with a sterner blast, Before my soul a voice and vision passed, Such as might Milton's jarring trump require, Or glooms of Dante fringed with lurid fire.
Oh, not of choice, for themes of public wrong I leave the green and pleasant paths of song, The mild, sweet words which soften and adorn, For sharp rebuke and bitter laugh of scorn.
More dear to me some song of private worth, Some homely idyl of my native North, Some summer pastoral of her inland vales, Or, grim and weird, her winter fireside tales Haunted by ghosts of unreturning sails, Lost barks at parting hung from stem to helm With prayers of love like dreams on Virgil's elm.
Nor private grief nor malice holds my pen; I owe but kindness to my fellow-men; And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer Their woes and weakness to our Father bear, Wherever fruits of Christian love are found In holy lives, to me is holy ground.
But the time passes.

It were vain to crave A late indulgence.

What I had I gave.
Forget the poet, but his warning heed, And shame his poor word with your nobler deed.
1856.
ON A PRAYER-BOOK, WITH ITS FRONTISPIECE, ARY SCHEFFER'S "CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR," AMERICANIZED BY THE OMISSION OF THE BLACK MAN.
It is hardly to be credited, yet is true, that in the anxiety of the Northern merchant to conciliate his Southern customer, a publisher was found ready thus to mutilate Scheffer's picture.