270 THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. When, on the white sea-strand, With twenty horsemen, "Then launched they to the blast; And with a sudden flaw "And as, to catch the gale, Death was the helmsman's hail Mid-ships, with iron keel "As with his wings aslant, Through the wild hurricane Bore I the maiden. THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. "Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o'er, Cloud-like we saw the shore Stretching to leeward; There, for my lady's bower, Built I the lofty tower Which, to this very hour, Stands looking seaward. "There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden's tears; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother. Death closed her mild blue eyes; Under that tower she lies; Ne'er shall the sun arise On such another! "Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen! Hateful to me were men The sunlight hateful! In the vast forest here, Fell I upon my spear, O, death was grateful! "Thus, seamed with many scars, Bursting its prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended! 271 272 THE PRESENT CRISIS. There from the flowing bowl Thus the tale ended. THE PRESENT CRISIS. JAMES RUSSELL LOWell. WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast, Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sub lime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart. THE PRESENT CRISIS. 273 So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod! For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame; In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left-hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light! 274 THE PRESENT CRISIS. Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong; And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. Backward look across the ages and the beaconmoments see, That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea; Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; Truth for ever on the scaffold, Wrong for ever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. |