In spite of Virtue and the Muse,

Nemesis will have her dues,

And all our struggles and our toils

Tighter wind the giant coils.

FATE.

EEP in the man sits fast his fate

DE

To mould his fortunes mean or great:

Unknown to Cromwell as to me

Was Cromwell's measure or degree;

Unknown to him, as to his horse,

If he than his groom be better or worse.

He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,
With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,
Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,

Broad England harbored not his peer:

Obeying Time, the last to own

The Genius from its cloudy throne.

For the prevision is allied

Unto the thing so signified;

Or say, the foresight that awaits

Is the same Genius that creates.

FREEDOM.

NCE I wished I might rehearse

ONCE

Freedom's pean in my verse,

That the slave who caught the strain

Should throb until he snapped his chain.

But the Spirit said, 'Not so ;

Speak it not, or speak it low;

Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,
Passion not to be expressed

But by heaving of the breast:

Yet, wouldst thou the mountain find

Where this deity is shrined,

Who gives to seas and sunset skies

Their unspent beauty of surprise,

And, when it lists him, waken can
Brute or savage into man;

Or, if in thy heart he shine,

Blends the starry fates with thine,

Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,

And makes thy thoughts archangels be;

Freedom's secret wilt thou know?

Counsel not with flesh and blood;

Loiter not for cloak or food;

Right thou feelest, rush to do.'

ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALI,

CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857.

TENDERLY the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire;

One morn is in the mighty heaven,

And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to town,

Our pulses are not less,

The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
Which children's voices bless.

For He that flung the broad blue fold
O'er-mantling land and sea,

One third part of the sky unrolled

For the banner of the free.