THE CHAMPION.
So in the shadow Mabel sits; Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, Her smile is sadder than her tears.
But cruel eyes have found her out, And cruel lips repeat her name, And taunt her with her mother's shame.
She answered not with railing words, But drew her apron o'er her face, And, sobbing, glided from the place.
And only pausing at the door, Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze Of one who, in her better days, Had been her warm and steady friend, Ere yet her mother's doom had made Even Esek Harden half afraid.
He felt that mute appeal of tears, And, starting, with an angry frown, Hushed all the wicked murmurs down.
"Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, "This passes harmless mirth or jest; I brook no insult to my guest.
"She is indeed her mother's child; But God's sweet pity ministers Unto no whiter soul than hers.
"Let Goody Martin rest in peace; I never knew her harm a fly, And witch or not, God knows--not I.
"I know who swore her life away; And as God lives, I'd not condemn An Indian dog on word of them." The broadest lands in all the town, The skill to guide, the power to awe, Were Harden's; and his word was law.
None dared withstand him to his face, But one sly maiden spake aside "The little witch is evil-eyed! "Her mother only killed a cow, Or witched a churn or dairy-pan; But she, forsooth, must charm a man!" IV.

IN THE SHADOW.
Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed The nameless terrors of the wood, And saw, as if a ghost pursued, Her shadow gliding in the moon; The soft breath of the west-wind gave A chill as from her mother's grave.
How dreary seemed the silent house! Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare Its windows had a dead man's stare! And, like a gaunt and spectral hand, The tremulous shadow of a birch Reached out and touched the door's low porch, As if to lift its latch; hard by, A sudden warning call she beard, The night-cry of a boding bird.
She leaned against the door; her face, So fair, so young, so full of pain, White in the moonlight's silver rain.
The river, on its pebbled rim, Made music such as childhood knew; The door-yard tree was whispered through By voices such as childhood's ear Had heard in moonlights long ago; And through the willow-boughs below.
She saw the rippled waters shine; Beyond, in waves of shade and light, The hills rolled off into the night.
She saw and heard, but over all A sense of some transforming spell, The shadow of her sick heart fell.
And still across the wooded space The harvest lights of Harden shone, And song and jest and laugh went on.
And he, so gentle, true, and strong, Of men the bravest and the best, Had he, too, scorned her with the rest?
She strove to drown her sense of wrong, And, in her old and simple way, To teach her bitter heart to pray.
Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith, Grew to a low, despairing cry Of utter misery: "Let me die! "Oh! take me from the scornful eyes, And hide me where the cruel speech And mocking finger may not reach! "I dare not breathe my mother's name A daughter's right I dare not crave To weep above her unblest grave! "Let me not live until my heart, With few to pity, and with none To love me, hardens into stone.
"O God! have mercy on Thy child, Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small, And take me ere I lose it all!" A shadow on the moonlight fell, And murmuring wind and wave became A voice whose burden was her name.
V.THE BETROTHAL.
Had then God heard her?
Had He sent His angel down?
In flesh and blood, Before her Esek Harden stood! He laid his hand upon her arm "Dear Mabel, this no more shall be; Who scoffs at you must scoff at me.
"You know rough Esek Harden well; And if he seems no suitor gay, And if his hair is touched with gray, "The maiden grown shall never find His heart less warm than when she smiled, Upon his knees, a little child!" Her tears of grief were tears of joy, As, folded in his strong embrace, She looked in Esek Harden's face.
"O truest friend of all'" she said, "God bless you for your kindly thought, And make me worthy of my lot!" He led her forth, and, blent in one, Beside their happy pathway ran The shadows of the maid and man.
He led her through his dewy fields, To where the swinging lanterns glowed, And through the doors the huskers showed.
"Good friends and neighbors!" Esek said, "I'm weary of this lonely life; In Mabel see my chosen wife! "She greets you kindly, one and all; The past is past, and all offence Falls harmless from her innocence.
"Henceforth she stands no more alone; You know what Esek Harden is;-- He brooks no wrong to him or his.
"Now let the merriest tales be told, And let the sweetest songs be sung That ever made the old heart young! "For now the lost has found a home; And a lone hearth shall brighter burn, As all the household joys return!" Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon, Between the shadow of the mows, Looked on them through the great elm--boughs! On Mabel's curls of golden hair, On Esek's shaggy strength it fell; And the wind whispered, "It is well!" THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.
The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall's The New Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin's History of Newbury.

Judge Sewall's father, Henry Sewall, was one of the pioneers of Newbury.
UP and down the village streets Strange are the forms my fancy meets, For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid, And through the veil of a closed lid The ancient worthies I see again I hear the tap of the elder's cane, And his awful periwig I see, And the silver buckles of shoe and knee.
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, His black cap hiding his whitened hair, Walks the Judge of the great Assize, Samuel Sewall the good and wise.
His face with lines of firmness wrought, He wears the look of a man unbought, Who swears to his hurt and changes not; Yet, touched and softened nevertheless With the grace of Christian gentleness, The face that a child would climb to kiss! True and tender and brave and just, That man might honor and woman trust.
Touching and sad, a tale is told, Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept to With a haunting sorrow that never slept, As the circling year brought round the time Of an error that left the sting of crime, When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts, With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports, And spake, in the name of both, the word That gave the witch's neck to the cord, And piled the oaken planks that pressed The feeble life from the warlock's breast! All the day long, from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn; No foot on his silent threshold trod, No eye looked on him save that of God, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, And, with precious proofs from the sacred word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, His faith confirmed and his trust renewed That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, Might be washed away in the mingled flood Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood! Green forever the memory be Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, Whom even his errors glorified, Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide I Honor and praise to the Puritan Who the halting step of his age outran, And, seeing the infinite worth of man In the priceless gift the Father gave, In the infinite love that stooped to save, Dared not brand his brother a slave "Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say, In his own quaint, picture-loving way, "Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade Which God shall cast down upon his head!" Widely as heaven and hell, contrast That brave old jurist of the past And the cunning trickster and knave of courts Who the holy features of Truth distorts, Ruling as right the will of the strong, Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong; Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek; Scoffing aside at party's nod Order of nature and law of God; For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, Reverence folly, and awe misplaced; Justice of whom 't were vain to seek As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik! Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins; Let him rot in the web of lies he spins! To the saintly soul of the early day, To the Christian judge, let us turn and say "Praise and thanks for an honest man!-- Glory to God for the Puritan!" I see, far southward, this quiet day, The hills of Newbury rolling away, With the many tints of the season gay, Dreamily blending in autumn mist Crimson, and gold, and amethyst.
Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, A stone's toss over the narrow sound.
Inland, as far as the eye can go, The hills curve round like a bended bow; A silver arrow from out them sprung, I see the shine of the Quasycung; And, round and round, over valley and hill, Old roads winding, as old roads will, Here to a ferry, and there to a mill; And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves, Through green elm arches and maple leaves,-- Old homesteads sacred to all that can Gladden or sadden the heart of man, Over whose thresholds of oak and stone Life and Death have come and gone There pictured tiles in the fireplace show, Great beams sag from the ceiling low, The dresser glitters with polished wares, The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs, And the low, broad chimney shows the crack By the earthquake made a century back.
Up from their midst springs the village spire With the crest of its cock in the sun afire; Beyond are orchards and planting lands, And great salt marshes and glimmering sands, And, where north and south the coast-lines run, The blink of the sea in breeze and sun! I see it all like a chart unrolled, But my thoughts are full of the past and old, I hear the tales of my boyhood told; And the shadows and shapes of early days Flit dimly by in the veiling haze, With measured movement and rhythmic chime Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme.
I think of the old man wise and good Who once on yon misty hillsides stood, (A poet who never measured rhyme, A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,) And, propped on his staff of age, looked down, With his boyhood's love, on his native town, Where, written, as if on its hills and plains, His burden of prophecy yet remains, For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind To read in the ear of the musing mind:-- "As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast As God appointed, shall keep its post; As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap; As long as pickerel swift and slim, Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim; As long as the annual sea-fowl know Their time to come and their time to go; As long as cattle shall roam at will The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill; As long as sheep shall look from the side Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, And Parker River, and salt-sea tide; As long as a wandering pigeon shall search The fields below from his white-oak perch, When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, And the dry husks fall from the standing corn; As long as Nature shall not grow old, Nor drop her work from her doting hold, And her care for the Indian corn forget, And the yellow rows in pairs to set;-- So long shall Christians here be born, Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn!-- By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost, Shall never a holy ear be lost, But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight, Be sown again in the fields of light!" The Island still is purple with plums, Up the river the salmon comes, The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds On hillside berries and marish seeds,-- All the beautiful signs remain, From spring-time sowing to autumn rain The good man's vision returns again! And let us hope, as well we can, That the Silent Angel who garners man May find some grain as of old lie found In the human cornfield ripe and sound, And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own The precious seed by the fathers sown! 1859.
THE RED RIPER VOYAGEUR.
OUT and in the river is winding The links of its long, red chain, Through belts of dusky pine-land And gusty leagues of plain.
Only, at times, a smoke-wreath With the drifting cloud-rack joins,-- The smoke of the hunting-lodges Of the wild Assiniboins.
Drearily blows the north-wind From the land of ice and snow; The eyes that look are weary, And heavy the hands that row.
And with one foot on the water, And one upon the shore, The Angel of Shadow gives warning That day shall be no more.
Is it the clang of wild-geese?
Is it the Indian's yell, That lends to the voice of the north-wind The tones of a far-off bell?
The voyageur smiles as he listens To the sound that grows apace; Well he knows the vesper ringing Of the bells of St.Boniface.
The bells of the Roman Mission, That call from their turrets twain, To the boatman on the river, To the hunter on the plain! Even so in our mortal journey The bitter north-winds blow, And thus upon life's Red River Our hearts, as oarsmen, row.
And when the Angel of Shadow Rests his feet on wave and shore, And our eyes grow dim with watching And our hearts faint at the oar, Happy is he who heareth The signal of his release In the bells of the Holy City, The chimes of eternal peace! 1859 THE PREACHER.
George Whitefield, the celebrated preacher, died at Newburyport in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since borne his name.
ITS windows flashing to the sky, Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, Far down the vale, my friend and I Beheld the old and quiet town; The ghostly sails that out at sea Flapped their white wings of mystery; The beaches glimmering in the sun, And the low wooded capes that run Into the sea-mist north and south; The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth; The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, The foam-line of the harbor-bar.
Over the woods and meadow-lands A crimson-tinted shadow lay, Of clouds through which the setting day Flung a slant glory far away.
It glittered on the wet sea-sands, It flamed upon the city's panes, Smote the white sails of ships that wore Outward or in, and glided o'er The steeples with their veering vanes! Awhile my friend with rapid search O'erran the landscape.

"Yonder spire Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire; What is it, pray ?"--"The Whitefield Church! Walled about by its basement stones, There rest the marvellous prophet's bones." Then as our homeward way we walked, Of the great preacher's life we talked; And through the mystery of our theme The outward glory seemed to stream, And Nature's self interpreted The doubtful record of the dead; And every level beam that smote The sails upon the dark afloat A symbol of the light became, Which touched the shadows of our blame, With tongues of Pentecostal flame.
Over the roofs of the pioneers Gathers the moss of a hundred years; On man and his works has passed the change Which needs must be in a century's range.
The land lies open and warm in the sun, Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run,-- Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain, The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain! But the living faith of the settlers old A dead profession their children hold; To the lust of office and greed of trade A stepping-stone is the altar made.
The church, to place and power the door, Rebukes the sin of the world no more, Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor.
Everywhere is the grasping hand, And eager adding of land to land; And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant But as a pilgrim's wayside tent,-- A nightly shelter to fold away When the Lord should call at the break of day,-- Solid and steadfast seems to be, And Time has forgotten Eternity! But fresh and green from the rotting roots Of primal forests the young growth shoots; From the death of the old the new proceeds, And the life of truth from the rot of creeds On the ladder of God, which upward leads, The steps of progress are human needs.
For His judgments still are a mighty deep, And the eyes of His providence never sleep When the night is darkest He gives the morn; When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn! In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought, Shaping his creed at the forge of thought; And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent The iron links of his argument, Which strove to grasp in its mighty span The purpose of God and the fate of man Yet faithful still, in his daily round To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found, The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart.
Had he not seen in the solitudes Of his deep and dark Northampton woods A vision of love about him fall?
Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul, But the tenderer glory that rests on them Who walk in the New Jerusalem, Where never the sun nor moon are known, But the Lord and His love are the light alone And watching the sweet, still countenance Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, Had he not treasured each broken word Of the mystical wonder seen and heard; And loved the beautiful dreamer more That thus to the desert of earth she bore Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shore?
As the barley-winnower, holding with pain Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys, So he who had waited long to hear The sound of the Spirit drawing near, Like that which the son of Iddo heard When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred, Felt the answer of prayer, at last, As over his church the afflatus passed, Breaking its sleep as breezes break To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake.
At first a tremor of silent fear, The creep of the flesh at danger near, A vague foreboding and discontent, Over the hearts of the people went.
All nature warned in sounds and signs The wind in the tops of the forest pines In the name of the Highest called to prayer, As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair.
Through ceiled chambers of secret sin Sudden and strong the light shone in; A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs Startled the man of title-deeds; The trembling hand of the worldling shook The dust of years from the Holy Book; And the psalms of David, forgotten long, Took the place of the scoffer's song.
The impulse spread like the outward course Of waters moved by a central force; The tide of spiritual life rolled down From inland mountains to seaboard town.
Prepared and ready the altar stands Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands And prayer availing, to downward call The fiery answer in view of all.
Hearts are like wax in the furnace; who Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew?
Lo! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands In the temple that never was made by hands,-- Curtains of azure, and crystal wall, And dome of the sunshine over all-- A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name Blown about on the winds of fame; Now as an angel of blessing classed, And now as a mad enthusiast.
Called in his youth to sound and gauge The moral lapse of his race and age, And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw Of human frailty and perfect law; Possessed by the one dread thought that lent Its goad to his fiery temperament, Up and down the world he went, A John the Baptist crying, Repent! No perfect whole can our nature make; Here or there the circle will break; The orb of life as it takes the light On one side leaves the other in night.
Never was saint so good and great As to give no chance at St.Peter's gate For the plea of the Devil's advocate.
So, incomplete by his being's law, The marvellous preacher had his flaw; With step unequal, and lame with faults, His shade on the path of History halts.
Wisely and well said the Eastern bard Fear is easy, but love is hard,-- Easy to glow with the Santon's rage, And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage; But he is greatest and best who can Worship Allah by loving man.
Thus he,--to whom, in the painful stress Of zeal on fire from its own excess, Heaven seemed so vast and earth so small That man was nothing, since God was all,-- Forgot, as the best at times have done, That the love of the Lord and of man are one.
Little to him whose feet unshod The thorny path of the desert trod, Careless of pain, so it led to God, Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's wrong, The weak ones trodden beneath the strong.
Should the worm be chooser ?--the clay withstand The shaping will of the potter's hand?
In the Indian fable Arjoon hears The scorn of a god rebuke his fears "Spare thy pity!" Krishna saith; "Not in thy sword is the power of death! All is illusion,--loss but seems; Pleasure and pain are only dreams; Who deems he slayeth doth not kill; Who counts as slain is living still.
Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime; Nothing dies but the cheats of time; Slain or slayer, small the odds To each, immortal as Indra's gods!" So by Savannah's banks of shade, The stones of his mission the preacher laid On the heart of the negro crushed and rent, And made of his blood the wall's cement; Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost; And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold.
What could it matter, more or less Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness?
Living or dying, bond or free, What was time to eternity?
Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes! Mission and church are now but dreams; Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan To honor God through the wrong of man.
Of all his labors no trace remains Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains.
The woof he wove in the righteous warp Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe, Clothes with curses the goodly land, Changes its greenness and bloom to sand; And a century's lapse reveals once more The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's shore.
Father of Light! how blind is he Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee With the blood and tears of humanity! He erred: shall we count His gifts as naught?
Was the work of God in him unwrought?
The servant may through his deafness err, And blind may be God's messenger; But the Errand is sure they go upon,-- The word is spoken, the deed is done.
Was the Hebrew temple less fair and good That Solomon bowed to gods of wood?
For his tempted heart and wandering feet, Were the songs of David less pure and sweet?
So in light and shadow the preacher went, God's erring and human instrument; And the hearts of the people where he passed Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast, Under the spell of a voice which took In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook, And the mystical chime of the bells of gold On the ephod's hem of the priest of old,-- Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law.
A solemn fear on the listening crowd Fell like the shadow of a cloud.
The sailor reeling from out the ships Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips.
Listened the fisherman rude and hard, The calker rough from the builder's yard; The man of the market left his load, The teamster leaned on his bending goad, The maiden, and youth beside her, felt Their hearts in a closer union melt, And saw the flowers of their love in bloom Down the endless vistas of life to come.
Old age sat feebly brushing away From his ears the scanty locks of gray; And careless boyhood, living the free Unconscious life of bird and tree, Suddenly wakened to a sense Of sin and its guilty consequence.
It was as if an angel's voice Called the listeners up for their final choice; As if a strong hand rent apart The veils of sense from soul and heart, Showing in light ineffable The joys of heaven and woes of hell All about in the misty air The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer; The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge, The water's lap on its gravelled edge, The wailing pines, and, far and faint, The wood-dove's note of sad complaint,-- To the solemn voice of the preacher lent An undertone as of low lament; And the note of the sea from its sand coast, On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost, Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment host.
Yet wise men doubted, and good men wept, As that storm of passion above them swept, And, comet-like, adding flame to flame, The priests of the new Evangel came,-- Davenport, flashing upon the crowd, Charged like summer's electric cloud, Now holding the listener still as death With terrible warnings under breath, Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed The vision of Heaven's beatitude! And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound Like a monk's with leathern girdle round, Wild with the toss of unshorn hair, And wringing of hands, and, eyes aglare, Groaning under the world's despair! Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to lose, Prophesied to the empty pews That gourds would wither, and mushrooms die, And noisiest fountains run soonest dry, Like the spring that gushed in Newbury Street, Under the tramp of the earthquake's feet, A silver shaft in the air and light, For a single day, then lost in night, Leaving only, its place to tell, Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell.
With zeal wing-clipped and white-heat cool, Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule, No longer harried, and cropped, and fleeced, Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest, But by wiser counsels left at ease To settle quietly on his lees, And, self-concentred, to count as done The work which his fathers well begun, In silent protest of letting alone, The Quaker kept the way of his own,-- A non-conductor among the wires, With coat of asbestos proof to fires.
And quite unable to mend his pace To catch the falling manna of grace, He hugged the closer his little store Of faith, and silently prayed for more.
And vague of creed and barren of rite, But holding, as in his Master's sight, Act and thought to the inner light, The round of his simple duties walked, And strove to live what the others talked.
And who shall marvel if evil went Step by step with the good intent, And with love and meekness, side by side, Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride ?-- That passionate longings and fancies vain Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain?
That over the holy oracles Folly sported with cap and bells?
That goodly women and learned men Marvelling told with tongue and pen How unweaned children chirped like birds Texts of Scripture and solemn words, Like the infant seers of the rocky glens In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes Or baby Lamas who pray and preach From Tartir cradles in Buddha's speech?
In the war which Truth or Freedom wages With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, Hate and malice and self-love mar The notes of triumph with painful jar, And the helping angels turn aside Their sorrowing faces the shame to bide.
Never on custom's oiled grooves The world to a higher level moves, But grates and grinds with friction hard On granite boulder and flinty shard.
The heart must bleed before it feels, The pool be troubled before it heals; Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good have its birth of pain; The active Virtues blush to find The Vices wearing their badge behind, And Graces and Charities feel the fire Wherein the sins of the age expire; The fiend still rends as of old he rent The tortured body from which he went.
But Time tests all.