As they passed The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood Flowed ankle-high about them, and dead men Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles,-- A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh, From which at times, quivered a living hand, And white lips moved and moaned.

A father tore His gray hairs, by the body of his son, In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept On his old bosom.

Suddenly a flash Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell.
Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seen The blessed Master and His works of love; Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels sing Above this open hell?
Thou God's high-priest! Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace! Thou the successor of His chosen ones! I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, In the dear Master's name, and for the love Of His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, Alien and separate from His holy faith, Wide as the difference between death and life, The hate of man and the great love of God! Hence, and repent!" Thereat the pontiff woke, Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream.
"What means he ?" cried the Bourbon, "Nothing more Than that your majesty hath all too well Catered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth, The Holy Father's supper troubleth him," Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile.
1853.
THE VOICES.
WHY urge the long, unequal fight, Since Truth has fallen in the street, Or lift anew the trampled light, Quenched by the heedless million's feet?
"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake The fools who know not ill from good Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take Thine ease among the multitude.
"Live out thyself; with others share Thy proper life no more; assume The unconcern of sun and air, For life or death, or blight or bloom.
"The mountain pine looks calmly on The fires that scourge the plains below, Nor heeds the eagle in the sun The small birds piping in the snow! "The world is God's, not thine; let Him Work out a change, if change must be The hand that planted best can trim And nurse the old unfruitful tree." So spake the Tempter, when the light Of sun and stars had left the sky; I listened, through the cloud and night, And beard, methought, a voice reply: "Thy task may well seem over-hard, Who scatterest in a thankless soil Thy life as seed, with no reward Save that which Duty gives to Toil.
"Not wholly is thy heart resigned To Heaven's benign and just decree, Which, linking thee with all thy kind, Transmits their joys and griefs to thee.
"Break off that sacred chain, and turn Back on thyself thy love and care; Be thou thine own mean idol, burn Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.
"Released from that fraternal law Which shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this.
"The meal unshared is food unblest Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend; Self-ease is pain; thy only rest Is labor for a worthy end; "A toil that gains with what it yields, And scatters to its own increase, And hears, while sowing outward fields, The harvest-song of inward peace.
"Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run, Free shines for all the healthful ray; The still pool stagnates in the sun, The lurid earth-fire haunts decay.
"What is it that the crowd requite Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies?
And but to faith, and not to sight, The walls of Freedom's temple rise?
"Yet do thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day; And, if denied the victor's meed, Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.
"Faith shares the future's promise; Love's Self-offering is a triumph won; And each good thought or action moves The dark world nearer to the sun.
"Then faint not, falter not, nor plead Thy weakness; truth itself is strong; The lion's strength, the eagle's speed, Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.
"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, To place or gain finds out its way, Hath power to seek the highest good, And duty's holiest call obey! "Strivest thou in darkness ?--Foes without In league with traitor thoughts within; Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin?
"Hast thou not, on some week of storm, Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair, And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form The curtains of its tent of prayer?
"So, haply, when thy task shall end, The wrong shall lose itself in right, And all thy week-day darkness blend With the long Sabbath of the light!" 1854.
THE NEW EXODUS.
Written upon hearing that slavery had been formally abolished in Egypt.
Unhappily, the professions and pledges of the vacillating government of Egypt proved unreliable.
BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand, And through the parted waves, From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, God led the Hebrew slaves! Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, As Egypt's statues cold, In the adytum of the sacred book Now stands that marvel old.
"Lo, God is great!" the simple Moslem says.
We seek the ancient date, Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase A dead one: "God was great!" And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, We dream of wonders past, Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, Each drowsier than the last.
O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids Stretches once more that hand, And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand.
And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human smile.
Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves.
No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod; Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of God.
1856.
THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.
"Joseph Sturge, with a companion, Thomas Harvey, has been visiting the shores of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief and loss to poor and peaceable sufferers, occasioned by the gun-boats of the allied squadrons in the late war, with a view to obtaining relief for them."-- Friends' Review.
ACROSS the frozen marshes The winds of autumn blow, And the fen-lands of the Wetter Are white with early snow.
But where the low, gray headlands Look o'er the Baltic brine, A bark is sailing in the track Of England's battle-line.
No wares hath she to barter For Bothnia's fish and grain; She saileth not for pleasure, She saileth not for gain.
But still by isle or mainland She drops her anchor down, Where'er the British cannon Rained fire on tower and town.
Outspake the ancient Amtman, At the gate of Helsingfors "Why comes this ship a-spying In the track of England's wars ?" "God bless her," said the coast-guard,-- "God bless the ship, I say.
The holy angels trim the sails That speed her on her way! "Where'er she drops her anchor, The peasant's heart is glad; Where'er she spreads her parting sail, The peasant's heart is sad.
"Each wasted town and hamlet She visits to restore; To roof the shattered cabin, And feed the starving poor.
"The sunken boats of fishers, The foraged beeves and grain, The spoil of flake and storehouse, The good ship brings again.
"And so to Finland's sorrow The sweet amend is made, As if the healing hand of Christ Upon her wounds were laid!" Then said the gray old Amtman, "The will of God be done! The battle lost by England's hate, By England's love is won! "We braved the iron tempest That thundered on our shore; But when did kindness fail to find The key to Finland's door?
"No more from Aland's ramparts Shall warning signal come, Nor startled Sweaborg hear again The roll of midnight drum.
"Beside our fierce Black Eagle The Dove of Peace shall rest; And in the mouths of cannon The sea-bird make her nest.
"For Finland, looking seaward, No coming foe shall scan; And the holy bells of Abo Shall ring, 'Good-will to man!' "Then row thy boat, O fisher! In peace on lake and bay; And thou, young maiden, dance again Around the poles of May! "Sit down, old men, together, Old wives, in quiet spin; Henceforth the Anglo-Saxon Is the brother of the Finn!" 1856.
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.
FROM PERUGIA.
"The thing which has the most dissevered the people from the Pope,--the unforgivable thing,--the breaking point between him and them,--has been the encouragement and promotion he gave to the officer under whom were executed the slaughters of Perugia.

That made the breaking point in many honest hearts that had clung to him before."-- HARRIET BEECHER STOWE'S Letters from Italy.
The tall, sallow guardsmen their horsetails have spread, Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red; And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff, And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff; Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth, Each a lord of the church and a prince of the earth.
What's this squeak of the fife, and this batter of drum Lo! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia come; The militant angels, whose sabres drive home To the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and abhorred, The good Father's missives, and "Thus saith the Lord!" And lend to his logic the point of the sword! O maids of Etruria, gazing forlorn O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn! O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame! O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name! Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves, And his tender compassion of prisons and graves! There they stand, the hired stabbers, the blood-stains yet fresh, That splashed like red wine from the vintage of flesh; Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack; But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords, And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words! Off with hats, down with knees, shout your vivas like mad! Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad, From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the quick, Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick, Who the role of the priest and the soldier unites, And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights! Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whom We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome; With whose advent we dreamed the new era began When the priest should be human, the monk be a man?
Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl, When freedom we trust to the crosier and cowl! Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hangman-faced Swiss-- (A blessing for him surely can't go amiss)-- Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss.
Short shrift will suffice him,--he's blest beyond doubt; But there 's blood on his hands which would scarcely wash out, Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout! Make way for the next! Here's another sweet son What's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done?
He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid!) At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did.
And the mothers?
Don't name them! these humors of war They who keep him in service must pardon him for.
Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat, With the heart of a wolf, and the stealth of a cat (As if Judas and Herod together were rolled), Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and gold, Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence, And flatters St.Peter while stealing his pence! Who doubts Antonelli?
Have miracles ceased When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest?
When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board, The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword, When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head, And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead! There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed way That they did when they rang for Bartholomew's day.
Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys, Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise.
Te Deum laudamus! All round without stint The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't! And now for the blessing! Of little account, You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount.
Its giver was landless, His raiment was poor, No jewelled tiara His fishermen wore; No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home, No Swiss guards! We order things better at Rome.
So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak; Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak; Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again, With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain; Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban; For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man! 1858.
ITALY.
ACROSS the sea I heard the groans Of nations in the intervals Of wind and wave.

Their blood and bones Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones, And sucked by priestly cannibals.
I dreamed of Freedom slowly gained By martyr meekness, patience, faith, And lo! an athlete grimly stained, With corded muscles battle-strained, Shouting it from the fields of death! I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight, Among the clamoring thousands mute, I only know that God is right, And that the children of the light Shall tread the darkness under foot.
I know the pent fire heaves its crust, That sultry skies the bolt will form To smite them clear; that Nature must The balance of her powers adjust, Though with the earthquake and the storm.
God reigns, and let the earth rejoice! I bow before His sterner plan.
Dumb are the organs of my choice; He speaks in battle's stormy voice, His praise is in the wrath of man! Yet, surely as He lives, the day Of peace He promised shall be ours, To fold the flags of war, and lay Its sword and spear to rust away, And sow its ghastly fields with flowers! 1860.
FREEDOM IN BRAZIL.
WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth In blue Brazilian skies; And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth From sunset to sunrise, From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves Thy joy's long anthem pour.
Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves Shall shame thy pride no more.
No fettered feet thy shaded margins press; But all men shall walk free Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness, Hast wedded sea to sea.
And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth The word of God is said, Once more, "Let there be light!"-- Son of the South, Lift up thy honored head, Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert More than by birth thy own, Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt By grateful hearts alone.
The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, But safe shall justice prove; Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail The panoply of love.
Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace, Thy future is secure; Who frees a people makes his statue's place In Time's Valhalla sure.
Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar Stretches to thee his hand, Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, Wrote freedom on his land.
And he whose grave is holy by our calm And prairied Sangamon, From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm To greet thee with "Well done!" And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet, And let thy wail be stilled, To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat Her promise half fulfilled.
The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, No sound thereof hath died; Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will Shall yet be satisfied.
The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, And far the end may be; But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong Go out and leave thee free.
1867.
AFTER ELECTION.
THE day's sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how! As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire.
Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first Be strong, my heart, to know the worst! Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke; That sound from lake and prairie broke, That sunset-gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent! That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevada's mountain tongue! Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee?
What strange, glad voice is that which calls From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?
From Mississippi's fountain-head A sound as of the bison's tread! There rustled freedom's Charter Oak In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke! Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun.