toil-imbrownèd hand; 120
One who hath dwelt with Nature well attended,
  Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books,
Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended,
  So that all beauty awes us in his looks:
Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered,
  Who as the clear northwestern wind is free,
Who walks with Form's observances unhampered,
  And follows the One Will obediently;
Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit,
  Control a lovely prospect every way; 130
Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet,
  And find a bottom still of worthless clay;
Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,
  Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,
And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking,
  One God-built shrine of reverence and love;
Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches
  Around the centre fixed of Destiny,
Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches
  The moving globe of being like a sky; 140
Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer
  Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh,
Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer
  Than that of all his brethren, low or high;
Who to the Right can feel himself the truer
  For being gently patient with the wrong,
Who sees a brother in the evildoer,
  And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;—
This, this is he for whom the world is waiting
  To sing the beatings of its mighty heart, 150
Too long hath it been patient with the grating
  Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art.
To him the smiling soul of man shall listen,
  Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside,
And once again in every eye shall glisten
  The glory of a nature satisfied.
His verse shall have a great commanding motion,
  Heaving and swelling with a melody
Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,
  And all the pure, majestic things that be. 160
Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence
  To make us feel the soul once more sublime,
We are of far too infinite an essence
  To rest contented with the lies of Time.
Speak out! and lo! a hush of deepest wonder
  Shall sink o'er all this many-voicèd scene,
As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder
  Shatters the blueness of a sky serene.

THE FATHERLAND

Where is the true man's fatherland?
  Is it where he by chance is born?
  Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
Oh yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Is it alone where freedom is,
  Where God is God and man is man?
  Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than this?
Oh yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Where'er a human heart doth wear
  Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves,
  Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

Where'er a single slave doth pine,
  Where'er one man may help another,—
  Thank God for such a birthright, brother,—
That spot of earth is thine and mine!
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

THE FORLORN

The night is dark, the stinging sleet,
  Swept by the bitter gusts of air,
Drives whistling down the lonely street,
  And glazes on the pavement bare.

The street-lamps flare and struggle dim
  Through the gray sleet-clouds as they pass,
Or, governed by a boisterous whim,
  Drop down and rustle on the glass.

One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl
  Faces the east-wind's searching flaws,
And, as about her heart they whirl,
  Her tattered cloak more tightly draws.

The flat brick walls look cold and bleak,
  Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze;
Yet dares she not a shelter seek,
  Though faint with hunger and disease.

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare,
  And, piercing through her garments thin,
Beats on her shrunken breast, and there
  Makes colder the cold heart within.

She lingers where a ruddy glow
  Streams outward through an open shutter,
Adding more bitterness to woe,
  More loneliness to desertion utter.

One half the cold she had not felt
  Until she saw this gush of light
Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt
  Its slow way through the deadening night.

She hears a woman's voice within,
  Singing sweet words her childhood knew,
And years of misery and sin
  Furl off, and leave her heaven blue.

Her freezing heart, like one who sinks
  Outwearied in the drifting snow.
Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks
  No longer of its hopeless woe;

Old fields, and clear blue summer days,
  Old meadows, green with grass, and trees
That shimmer through the trembling haze
  And whiten in the western breeze.

Old faces, all the friendly past
  Rises within her heart again,
And sunshine from her childhood cast
  Makes summer of the icy rain.

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,
  From man's humanity apart,
She hears old footsteps wandering slow
  Through the lone chambers of the heart.

Outside the porch before the door,
  Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,
She lies, no longer foul and poor,
  No longer dreary and alone.

Next morning something heavily
  Against the opening door did weigh,
And there, from sin and sorrow free,
  A woman on the threshold lay.

A smile upon the wan lips told
  That she had found a calm release,
And that, from out the want and cold,
  The song had borne her soul in peace.

For, whom the heart of man shuts out,
  Sometimes the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
  With silence mid the world's loud din;

And one of his great charities
  Is Music, and it doth not scorn
To close the lids upon the eyes
  Of the polluted and forlorn;

Far was she from her childhood's home,
  Farther in guilt had wandered thence,
Yet thither it had bid her come
  To die in maiden innocence.

MIDNIGHT

The moon shines white and silent
  On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,
  O'er the wide marsh doth glide,
Spreading its ghost-like billows
  Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic
  Makes all things mysteries,
And lures the earth's dumb spirit
  Up to the longing skies:
I seem to hear dim whispers,
  And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o'er the meadow
  In pulses come and go;
The elm-trees' heavy shadow
  Weighs on the grass below;
And faintly from the distance
  The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic,
  The very bushes swell
And take