Nor like him, When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb The rusted chain of ages, help to bind His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of the mind.
1846.
CHANNING.
The last time I saw Dr.Channing was in the summer of 1841, when, in company with my English friend, Joseph Sturge, so well known for his philanthropic labors and liberal political opinions, I visited him in his summer residence in Rhode Island.

In recalling the impressions of that visit, it can scarcely be necessary to say, that I have no reference to the peculiar religious opinions of a man whose life, beautifully and truly manifested above the atmosphere of sect, is now the world's common legacy.
Not vainly did old poets tell, Nor vainly did old genius paint God's great and crowning miracle, The hero and the saint! For even in a faithless day Can we our sainted ones discern; And feel, while with them on the way, Our hearts within us burn.
And thus the common tongue and pen Which, world-wide, echo Channing's fame, As one of Heaven's anointed men, Have sanctified his name.
In vain shall Rome her portals bar, And shut from him her saintly prize, Whom, in the world's great calendar, All men shall canonize.
By Narragansett's sunny bay, Beneath his green embowering wood, To me it seems but yesterday Since at his side I stood.
The slopes lay green with summer rains, The western wind blew fresh and free, And glimmered down the orchard lanes The white surf of the sea.
With us was one, who, calm and true, Life's highest purpose understood, And, like his blessed Master, knew The joy of doing good.
Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame, Yet on the lips of England's poor And toiling millions dwelt his name, With blessings evermore.
Unknown to power or place, yet where The sun looks o'er the Carib sea, It blended with the freeman's prayer And song of jubilee.
He told of England's sin and wrong, The ills her suffering children know, The squalor of the city's throng, The green field's want and woe.
O'er Channing's face the tenderness Of sympathetic sorrow stole, Like a still shadow, passionless, The sorrow of the soul.
But when the generous Briton told How hearts were answering to his own, And Freedom's rising murmur rolled Up to the dull-eared throne, I saw, methought, a glad surprise Thrill through that frail and pain-worn frame, And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes, A still and earnest flame.
His few, brief words were such as move The human heart,--the Faith-sown seeds Which ripen in the soil of love To high heroic deeds.
No bars of sect or clime were felt, The Babel strife of tongues had ceased, And at one common altar knelt The Quaker and the priest.
And not in vain: with strength renewed, And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim, For that brief meeting, each pursued The path allotted him.
How echoes yet each Western hill And vale with Channing's dying word! How are the hearts of freemen still By that great warning stirred.
The stranger treads his native soil, And pleads, with zeal unfelt before, The honest right of British toil, The claim of England's poor.
Before him time-wrought barriers fall, Old fears subside, old hatreds melt, And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall, The Saxon greets the Celt.
The yeoman on the Scottish lines, The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim, The delver in the Cornwall mines, Look up with hope to him.
Swart smiters of the glowing steel, Dark feeders of the forge's flame, Pale watchers at the loom and wheel, Repeat his honored name.
And thus the influence of that hour Of converse on Rhode Island's strand Lives in the calm, resistless power Which moves our fatherland.
God blesses still the generous thought, And still the fitting word He speeds And Truth, at His requiring taught, He quickens into deeds.
Where is the victory of the grave?
What dust upon the spirit lies?
God keeps the sacred life he gave,-- The prophet never dies! 1844.
TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.
Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845.
She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence.

The Birmingham Pilot says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this excellent woman." Thine is a grief, the depth of which another May never know; Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother! To thee I go.
I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding Thy hand in mine; With even the weakness of my soul upholding The strength of thine.
I never knew, like thee, the dear departed; I stood not by When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted Lay down to die.
And on thy ears my words of weak condoling Must vainly fall The funeral bell which in thy heart is tolling, Sounds over all! I will not mock thee with the poor world's common And heartless phrase, Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman With idle praise.
With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb! Yet, would I say what thy own heart approveth Our Father's will, Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth, Is mercy still.
Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel Hath evil wrought Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel,-- The good die not! God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly What He hath given; They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly As in His heaven.
And she is with thee; in thy path of trial She walketh yet; Still with the baptism of thy self-denial Her locks are wet.
Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest Lie white in view She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest To both is true.
Thrust in thy sickle! England's toilworn peasants Thy call abide; And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence, Shall glean beside! 1845.
DANIEL WHEELER Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends, who had labored in the cause of his Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and the islands of the Pacific, died in New York in the spring of 1840, while on a religious visit to this country.
O Dearly loved! And worthy of our love! No more Thy aged form shall rise before The bushed and waiting worshiper, In meek obedience utterance giving To words of truth, so fresh and living, That, even to the inward sense, They bore unquestioned evidence Of an anointed Messenger! Or, bowing down thy silver hair In reverent awfulness of prayer, The world, its time and sense, shut out The brightness of Faith's holy trance Gathered upon thy countenance, As if each lingering cloud of doubt, The cold, dark shadows resting here In Time's unluminous atmosphere, Were lifted by an angel's hand, And through them on thy spiritual eye Shone down the blessedness on high, The glory of the Better Land! The oak has fallen! While, meet for no good work, the vine May yet its worthless branches twine, Who knoweth not that with thee fell A great man in our Israel?
Fallen, while thy loins were girded still, Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet, And in thy hand retaining yet The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free, Across the Neva's cold morass The breezes from the Frozen Sea With winter's arrowy keenness pass; Or where the unwarning tropic gale Smote to the waves thy tattered sail, Or where the noon-hour's fervid heat Against Tahiti's mountains beat; The same mysterious Hand which gave Deliverance upon land and wave, Tempered for thee the blasts which blew Ladaga's frozen surface o'er, And blessed for thee the baleful dew Of evening upon Eimeo's shore, Beneath this sunny heaven of ours, Midst our soft airs and opening flowers Hath given thee a grave! His will be done, Who seeth not as man, whose way Is not as ours! 'T is well with thee! Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay Disquieted thy closing day, But, evermore, thy soul could say, "My Father careth still for me!" Called from thy hearth and home,--from her, The last bud on thy household tree, The last dear one to minister In duty and in love to thee, From all which nature holdeth dear, Feeble with years and worn with pain, To seek our distant land again, Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing The things which should befall thee here, Whether for labor or for death, In childlike trust serenely going To that last trial of thy faith! Oh, far away, Where never shines our Northern star On that dark waste which Balboa saw From Darien's mountains stretching far, So strange, heaven-broad, and lone, that there, With forehead to its damp wind bare, He bent his mailed knee in awe; In many an isle whose coral feet The surges of that ocean beat, In thy palm shadows, Oahu, And Honolulu's silver bay, Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue, And taro-plains of Tooboonai, Are gentle hearts, which long shall be Sad as our own at thought of thee, Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed, Whose souls in weariness and need Were strengthened and refreshed by thine.
For blessed by our Father's hand Was thy deep love and tender care, Thy ministry and fervent prayer,-- Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine To Israel in a weary land.
And they who drew By thousands round thee, in the hour Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep, That He who bade the islands keep Silence before Him, might renew Their strength with His unslumbering power, They too shall mourn that thou art gone, That nevermore thy aged lip Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn, Of those who first, rejoicing, heard Through thee the Gospel's glorious word,-- Seals of thy true apostleship.
And, if the brightest diadem, Whose gems of glory purely burn Around the ransomed ones in bliss, Be evermore reserved for them Who here, through toil and sorrow, turn Many to righteousness, May we not think of thee as wearing That star-like crown of light, and bearing, Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band, Th' unfading palm-branch in thy hand; And joining with a seraph's tongue In that new song the elders sung, Ascribing to its blessed Giver Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever! Farewell! And though the ways of Zion mourn When her strong ones are called away, Who like thyself have calmly borne The heat and burden of the day, Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth His ancient watch around us keepeth; Still, sent from His creating hand, New witnesses for Truth shall stand, New instruments to sound abroad The Gospel of a risen Lord; To gather to the fold once more The desolate and gone astray, The scattered of a cloudy day, And Zion's broken walls restore; And, through the travail and the toil Of true obedience, minister Beauty for ashes, and the oil Of joy for mourning, unto her! So shall her holy bounds increase With walls of praise and gates of peace So shall the Vine, which martyr tears And blood sustained in other years, With fresher life be clothed upon; And to the world in beauty show Like the rose-plant of Jericho, And glorious as Lebanon! 1847 TO FREDRIKA BREMER.
It is proper to say that these lines are the joint impromptus of my sister and myself.

They are inserted here as an expression of our admiration of the gifted stranger whom we have since learned to love as a friend.
Seeress of the misty Norland, Daughter of the Vikings bold, Welcome to the sunny Vineland, Which thy fathers sought of old! Soft as flow of Siija's waters, When the moon of summer shines, Strong as Winter from his mountains Roaring through the sleeted pines.
Heart and ear, we long have listened To thy saga, rune, and song; As a household joy and presence We have known and loved thee long.
By the mansion's marble mantel, Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies Meet and mingle with our mirth.
And o'er weary spirits keeping Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill, Shine they like thy sun of summer Over midnight vale and hill.
We alone to thee are strangers, Thou our friend and teacher art; Come, and know us as we know thee; Let us meet thee heart to heart! To our homes and household altars We, in turn, thy steps would lead, As thy loving hand has led us O'er the threshold of the Swede.
1849.
TO AVIS KEENE ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-MOSSES.
Thanks for thy gift Of ocean flowers, Born where the golden drift Of the slant sunshine falls Down the green, tremulous walls Of water, to the cool, still coral bowers, Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers, God's gardens of the deep His patient angels keep; Gladdening the dim, strange solitude With fairest forms and hues, and thus Forever teaching us The lesson which the many-colored skies, The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies, The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that flings The tropic sunshine from its golden wings, The brightness of the human countenance, Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance, Forevermore repeat, In varied tones and sweet, That beauty, in and of itself, is good.
O kind and generous friend, o'er whom The sunset hues of Time are cast, Painting, upon the overpast And scattered clouds of noonday sorrow The promise of a fairer morrow, An earnest of the better life to come; The binding of the spirit broken, The warning to the erring spoken, The comfort of the sad, The eye to see, the hand to cull Of common things the beautiful, The absent heart made glad By simple gift or graceful token Of love it needs as daily food, All own one Source, and all are good Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach, Where spent waves glimmer up the beach, And toss their gifts of weed and shell From foamy curve and combing swell, No unbefitting task was thine To weave these flowers so soft and fair In unison with His design Who loveth beauty everywhere; And makes in every zone and clime, In ocean and in upper air, All things beautiful in their time.
For not alone in tones of awe and power He speaks to Inan; The cloudy horror of the thunder-shower His rainbows span; And where the caravan Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there, He gives the weary eye The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours, And on its branches dry Calls out the acacia's flowers; And where the dark shaft pierces down Beneath the mountain roots, Seen by the miner's lamp alone, The star-like crystal shoots; So, where, the winds and waves below, The coral-branched gardens grow, His climbing weeds and mosses show, Like foliage, on each stony bough, Of varied hues more strangely gay Than forest leaves in autumn's day;-- Thus evermore, On sky, and wave, and shore, An all-pervading beauty seems to say God's love and power are one; and they, Who, like the thunder of a sultry day, Smite to restore, And they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift Their perfume on the air, Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift, Making their lives a prayer! 1850 THE HILL-TOP The burly driver at my side, We slowly climbed the hill, Whose summit, in the hot noontide, Seemed rising, rising still.
At last, our short noon-shadows bid The top-stone, bare and brown, From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid, The rough mass slanted down.
I felt the cool breath of the North; Between me and the sun, O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth, I saw the cloud-shades run.
Before me, stretched for glistening miles, Lay mountain-girdled Squam; Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles Upon its bosom swam.
And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm, Far as the eye could roam, Dark billows of an earthquake storm Beflecked with clouds like foam, Their vales in misty shadow deep, Their rugged peaks in shine, I saw the mountain ranges sweep The horizon's northern line.
There towered Chocorua's peak; and west, Moosehillock's woods were seem, With many a nameless slide-scarred crest And pine-dark gorge between.
Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, The great Notch mountains shone, Watched over by the solemn-browed And awful face of stone! "A good look-off!" the driver spake; "About this time, last year, I drove a party to the Lake, And stopped, at evening, here.
'T was duskish down below; but all These hills stood in the sun, Till, dipped behind yon purple wall, He left them, one by one.
"A lady, who, from Thornton hill, Had held her place outside, And, as a pleasant woman will, Had cheered the long, dull ride, Besought me, with so sweet a smile, That--though I hate delays-- I could not choose but rest awhile,-- (These women have such ways!) "On yonder mossy ledge she sat, Her sketch upon her knees, A stray brown lock beneath her hat Unrolling in the breeze; Her sweet face, in the sunset light Upraised and glorified,-- I never saw a prettier sight In all my mountain ride.
"As good as fair; it seemed her joy To comfort and to give; My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy, Will bless her while they live!" The tremor in the driver's tone His manhood did not shame "I dare say, sir, you may have known"-- He named a well-known name.
Then sank the pyramidal mounds, The blue lake fled away; For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds, A lighted hearth for day! From lonely years and weary miles The shadows fell apart; Kind voices cheered, sweet human smiles Shone warm into my heart.
We journeyed on; but earth and sky Had power to charm no more; Still dreamed my inward-turning eye The dream of memory o'er.
Ah! human kindness, human love,-- To few who seek denied; Too late we learn to prize above The whole round world beside! 1850 ELLIOTT.
Ebenezer Elliott was to the artisans of England what Burns was to the peasantry of Scotland.

His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to that overwhelming tide of popular opinion and feeling which resulted in the repeal of the tax on bread.