May 4, 1861 pg. 8
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What just curse has fallen from God, That before thy pleasant gates Anarchy, the demon waits? Towards thy bosom point the guns Of thy own rebellious sons; High their reptile ensign waves O’er thy fallen patriots’ graves, While thy flag, by hands unjust, Torn, dishonored, lies in dust, Trampled by insurgent tides Of relentless fratricides. Freemen of the awakening North! Rise, and come by millions forth! Wear your manhood like a crown, Strike the rebel standard down! Woe to him who longer stands Looking on with folded hands! Even my heart, a woman’s, heats, My dead sire bequeathed to me Blood that leaps for Liberty! For the sons of kindred sires Thus to light war’s reeking fires, Well might seem a thing accursed! ‘Tis not strange ye paused at first, Lest your foreheads you should stain With the infamy of Cain. But ye need no longer doubt; God has marked your pathway out! On, right on, through War’s Red Sea As of old, your steps must be. Strike, then, ere the invasion spreads! Be their blood on their own heads! State Line, Mass., April 28 MARY E. WILCOX Our need of grace is; But in the shallow pools we daily ford, Earth’s commonplaces. Each Alpine sorrow as a sequence brings Commiseration; And Death’s dark angels, from departing wings, Drop consolation. Still more than grief are Life’s vexations small For patience calling; The hopes we’ve nourished, and our castles, all Air-builded, falling. And half-relenting, slow of heart, we brave Each evil doubled; Unwilling to believe God’s angels have The waters troubled. Nor in our giant labors need we most God’s kind sustaining; But at each humble and distasteful post, Where with complaining, We falter o’er our minor tasks, and, where We should be hoping, Through the lone night of faith, we feebly are, Like blind men, groping. Our souls take courage at some great demand, Self-sacrificing, But when the motive power is low, thy hand Lend energizing; So that we lose not heart and purpose quite, But feel rather, Though walking ‘neath the cloud that makes the night, Thou are Our Father. Collinville, Ct. Wherein a slumb’rous shadow lies, As on twin violets at set of sun,— I see from your far depths arise The smile, all pensive tenderness, of one Whose day went down the western skies Ere half its golden hours their course had run. Soft, shining hair, Parted athwart a baby brow, Less thoughtful haply, scarcely though less fair, Than hers whereon is beaming now Love’s light eternal, in a Kingdom where Cometh no grief nor pain to bow The spirit, new-born to its native air. Low, tender tone, In words or laughter gushing o’er Two rosy lips, which, as they meet my own, Electric thrill my heart once more, As ere Death left that heart an empty throne— O voice of Love! from that far shore Thou speakest yet! I am not all alone. Wee, tot’ring feet! Still in life’s way as undefiled As now, would I might keep you from its heat, Its dust, from error’s thorny wild Forever free, till hand in hand we meet The loved; I too, as thou, a child Led upward to the Soul’s communion sweet. April, 1861 From tankards scooped in pearl; Not Frankfort berries yield the sense— Such a delirious whirl. Inebriate of air am I, And debauchee of dew;— Reeling through endless summer days, From inns of molten blue. When landlords turn the drunken bee Out of the Fox-glove’s door, When butterflies renounce their drams, I shall but drink the more; Till seraphs swing their snowy hats, And saints to windows run, To see the little tippler Come staggering toward the sun. |