Now all is calm, and fresh, and still;
       Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
     And talk of children on the hill,
       And bell of wandering kine are heard.

     No solemn host goes trailing by
       The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;
     Men start not at the battle-cry—­
       Oh, be it never heard again!

     Soon rested those who fought; but thou
       Who minglest in the harder strife
     For truths which men receive not now,
       Thy warfare only ends with life.

     A friendless warfare! lingering long
       Through weary day and weary year;
     A wild and many-weaponed throng
       Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

     Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
       And blench not at thy chosen lot;
     The timid good may stand aloof,
       The sage may frown—­yet faint thou not.

     Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
       The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
     For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
       The victory of endurance born.

     Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again—­
       The eternal years of God are hers;
     But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
       And dies among his worshipers.

     Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
       When they who helped thee flee in fear,
     Die full of hope and manly trust,
       Like those who fell in battle here!

     Another hand thy sword shall wield,
       Another hand the standard wave,
     Till from the trumpet’s mouth is pealed
       The blast of triumph o’er thy grave.

D. Appleton and Company, New York.

TO A WATERFOWL

Whither, ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

        Vainly the fowler’s eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

                Thy figure floats along,

        Seek’st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

                On the chafed ocean-side?

        There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—­
The desert and illimitable air—­

                Lone wandering, but not lost.

        All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

                Though the dark night is near.

        And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,

                Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.