"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me.'

Then Freedom sternly said: 'I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won. 30

"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.

"The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta's charges sped.

'But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.

ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER1

ANDREW RYKMAN 's dead and gone;

You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date.

'Trust is truer than our fears,'

Runs the legend through the moss, 'Gain is not in added years,

Nor in death is loss."

Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him..

There the dews of quiet fall,
Singing birds and soft winds stray:
Shall the tender Heart of all

Be less kind than they?

What he was and what he is They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind.

Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare
Shape in words a mortal's prayer!
Prayer, that, when my day is done,
And I see its setting sun,

Shorn and beamless, cold and dim,
Sink beneath the horizon's rim, -
When this ball of rock and clay
Crumbles from my feet away,
And the solid shores of sense
Melt into the vague immense,
Father! I may come to Thee
Even with the beggar's plea,
As the poorest of thy poor,
With my needs, and nothing more.

Not as one who seeks his home
With a step assured I come;
Still behind the tread I hear
Of my life-companion, Fear;
Still a shadow deep and vast
From my westering feet is cast,

IO

20

330

40

1 In June, 1862, Whittier wrote to Fields, then editor of the Atlantic: I have by me a poem upon which I have bestowed much thought, and which I think is in some respects the best thing I have ever written. I will bring it or send it soon.' This poem was ' Andrew Rykman's Prayer.'

When I love Thee more than fear Thee,
And thy blessed Christ seems near me,
With forgiving look, as when
He beheld the Magdalen.

Well I know that all things move
To the spheral rhythm of love,
That to Thee, O Lord of all!
Nothing can of chance befall:
Child and seraph, mote and star,
Well Thou knowest what we are!
Through thy vast creative plan
Looking, from the worm to man,
There is pity in thine eyes,
But no hatred nor surprise.
Not in blind caprice of will,
Not in cunning sleight of skill,
Not for show of power, was wrought
Nature's marvel in thy thought.
Never careless hand and vain
Smites these chords of joy and pain;
No immortal selfishness

Plays the game of curse and bless:
Heaven and earth are witnesses
That thy glory goodness is.

Not for sport of mind and force
Hast Thou made thy universe,
But as atmosphere and zone
Of thy loving heart alone.
Man, who walketh in a show,
Sees before him, to and fro,
Shadow and illusion go;
All things flow and fluctuate,
Now contract and now dilate.
In the welter of this sea,
Nothing stable is but Thee;
In this whirl of swooning trance,
Thou alone art permanence;.
All without Thee only seems,
All beside is choice of dreams.
Never yet in darkest mood
Doubted I that Thou wast good,

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70

80

90

Nor mistook my will for fate,
Pain of sin for heavenly hate, -
Never dreamed the gates of pearl
Rise from out the burning marl,
Or that good can only live
Of the bad conservative,
And through counterpoise of hell
Heaven alone be possible.

For myself alone I doubt;
All is well, I know, without;
I alone the beauty mar,
I alone the music jar.

100

Yet, with hands by evil stained,
And an ear by discord pained,
I am groping for the keys
Of the heavenly harmonies;
Still within my heart I bear
Love for all things good and fair.
Hands of want or souls in pain
Have not sought my door in vain;
I have kept my fealty good
To the human brotherhood;
Scarcely have I asked in prayer
That which others might not share.
I, who hear with secret shame
Praise that paineth more than blame,
Rich alone in favors lent,
Virtuous by accident,

Doubtful where I fain would rest,
Frailest where I seem the best,
Only strong for lack of test,
What am I, that I should press
Special pleas of selfishness,
Coolly mounting into heaven
On my neighbor unforgiven?
Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised,
Comes a saint unrecognized;
Never fails my heart to greet
Noble deed with warmer beat;
Halt and maimed, I own not less
All the grace of holiness;
Nor, through shame or self-distrust,
Less I love the pure and just.
Lord, forgive these words of mine:
What have I that is not Thine?
Whatsoe'er I fain would boast
Needs thy pitying pardon most.
Thou, O Elder Brother! who
In thy flesh our trial knew,

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130

140

Thou, who hast been touched by these
Our most sad infirmities,
Thou alone the gulf canst span

In the dual heart of man,

And between the soul and sense

Scarcely Hope hath shaped for me
What the future life may be.
Other lips may well be bold;
Like the publican of old,
I can only urge the plea,
Lord, be merciful to me !'
Nothing of desert I claim,
Unto me belongeth shame.
Not for me the crowns of gold,
Palms, and harpings manifold;
Not for erring eye and feet
Jasper wall and golden street.
What Thou wilt, O Father, give!
All is gain that I receive.
If my voice I may not raise
In the elders' song of praise,
If I may not, sin-defiled,
Claim my birthright as a child,
Suffer it that I to Thee
As an hired servant be;
Let the lowliest task be mine,
Grateful, so the work be thine;
Let me find the humblest place
In the shadow of thy grace:
Blest to me were any spot
Where temptation whispers not.
If there be some weaker one,
Give me strength to help him on;
If a blinder soul there be,
Let me guide him nearer Thee.
Make my mortal dreams come true
With the work I fain would do;
Clothe with life the weak intent,
Let me be the thing I meant;
Let me find in thy employ
Peace that dearer is than joy;
Out of self to love be led
And to heaven acclimated,
Until all things sweet and good
Seem my natural habitude.

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170

180

190

200

Once, in the old Colonial days,

Two hundred years ago and more,

A boat sailed down through the winding ways

Of Hampton River to that low shore, 20 Full of a goodly company

Sailing out on the summer sea,
Veering to catch the land-breeze light,
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to
right.

In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass,

'Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!'

A young man sighed, who saw them pass. Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, 30 Hearing a voice in a far-off song, Watching a white hand beckoning long.

1 The Goody Cole who figures in this poem and 'The Changeling' was Eunice Cole, who for a quarter of a century or more was feared, persecuted, and hated as the witch of Hampton. She lived alone in a hovel a little distant from the spot where the Hampton Academy now stands, and there she died, unattended. When her death was discovered, she was hastily covered up in the earth near by, and a stake driven through her body, to exorcise the evil spirit. Rev. Stephen Bachiler or Batchelder was one of the ablest of the early New England preachers. His marriage late in life to a woman regarded by his church as disreputable induced him to return to England, where he enjoyed the esteem and favor of Oliver Cromwell during the Protectorate. (WHITTIER.)

See also Pickard's Whittier-Land, pp. 88-89.

Fie on the witch!' cried a merry girl,
As they rounded the point where Goody
Cole

Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl,
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul.
'Oho!' she muttered, ye 're brave to-
day!

But I hear the little waves laugh and say, "The broth will be cold that waits at home;

For it 's one to go, but another to come!""

'She's cursed,' said the skipper; 'speak her fair:

41

I'm scary always to see her shake Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.'

But merrily still, with laugh and shout, From Hampton River the boat sailed out, Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh,

And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye.

They dropped their lines in the lazy tide,

Drawing up haddock and mottled cod; 50 They saw not the shadow that walked beside,

They heard not the feet with silence shod. But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, Shot by the lightnings through and through; And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast,

Ran along the sky from west to east.

Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea

Up to the dimmed and wading sun; But he spake like a brave man cheerily, 'Yet there is time for our homeward