They were men of present valor, stalwart old icono

clasts,

Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the

Past's;

But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,

Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee

The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,

Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar

fires;

Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay,

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral

lamps away

To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of

to-day?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient

good uncouth;

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's bloodrusted key.

December, 1845.

SUMMER STORM.

UNTREMULOUS in the river clear,

Toward the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge;

So still the air, that I can hear

The slender clarion of the unseen midge;

Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases, Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases, The huddling trample of a drove of sheep Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases In dust on the other side; life's emblem deep, A confused noise between two silences,

Finding at last in dust precarious peace.

On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grasses
Soak up the sunshine; sleeps the brimming tide,
Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passes
Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide
Wavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side;
up the west, like a rock-shivered surge,

But

Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray ; Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge,

And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway.

Suddenly all the sky is hid

As with the shutting of a lid,

One by one great drops are falling

Doubtful and slow,

Down the pane they are crookedly crawling,

And the wind breathes low;

Slowly the circles widen on the river,

Widen and mingle, one and all;

Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,
Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter,
The wind is gathering in the west;

The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter,

Then droop to a fitful rest;

Up from the stream with sluggish flap

Struggles the gull, and floats away;

Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,-
We shall not see the sun go down to-day :
Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh,
And tramples the grass with terrified feet,
The startled river turns leaden and harsh,

You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.

Look! look! that livid flash!

And instantly follows the rattling thunder,

As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,

On the Earth, which crouches in silence under;
And now a solid gray wall of rain

Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile;

For a breath's space I see the blue wood again,

And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof,

Bursts rattling over the sun-parched roof;