Shapes of Clay

    Upon the Nileside statue shone,
    And struck from the enchanted stone
  The music of a mighty fame,
  Let Man salute the rising day
    Of Liberty, but not adore.
    'Tis Opportunity—no more—
  A useful, not a sacred, ray.
  It bringeth good, it bringeth ill,
    As he possessing shall elect.
    He maketh it of none effect
  Who walketh not within thy will.
  Give thou or more or less, as we
    Shall serve the right or serve the wrong.
    Confirm our freedom but so long
  As we are worthy to be free.
  But when (O, distant be the time!)
    Majorities in passion draw
    Insurgent swords to murder Law,
  And all the land is red with crime;
  Or—nearer menace!—when the band
    Of feeble spirits cringe and plead
    To the gigantic strength of Greed,
  And fawn upon his iron hand;—
  Nay, when the steps to state are worn
    In hollows by the feet of thieves,
    And Mammon sits among the sheaves
  And chuckles while the reapers mourn;
  Then stay thy miracle!—replace
    The broken throne, repair the chain,
    Restore the interrupted reign
  And veil again thy patient face.
  Lo! here upon the world's extreme
    We stand with lifted arms and dare
    By thine eternal name to swear
  Our country, which so fair we deem—
  Upon whose hills, a bannered throng,
    The spirits of the sun display
    Their flashing lances day by day
  And hear the sea's pacific song—
  Shall be so ruled in right and grace
    That men shall say: 'O, drive afield
    The lawless eagle from the shield,
  And call an angel to the place!'

RELIGION.

Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod,
Sought the great temple of the living God.
The worshippers arose and drove him forth,
And one in power beat him with a rod.
'Allah,' he cried, 'thou seest what I got;
Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot.'
'Be comforted,' the Holy One replied;
'It is the only place where I am not.'

A MORNING FANCY.

I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boat
Upon the surface of a shoreless sea
Whereon no ship nor anything did float,
Save only the frail bark supporting me;
And that—it was so shadowy—seemed to be
Almost from out the very vapors wrought
Of the great ocean underneath its keel;
And all that blue profound appeared as naught
But thicker sky, translucent to reveal,
Miles down, whatever through its spaces glided,
Or at the bottom traveled or abided.
Great cities there I saw—of rich and poor,
The palace and the hovel; mountains, vales,
Forest and field, the desert and the moor,
Tombs of the good and wise who'd lived in jails,
And seas of denser fluid, white with sails
Pushed at by currents moving here and there
And sensible to sight above the flat
Of that opaquer deep. Ah, strange and fair
The nether world that I was gazing at
With beating heart from that exalted level,
And—lest I founder—trembling like the devil!
The cities all were populous: men swarmed
In public places—chattered, laughed and wept;
And savages their shining bodies warmed
At fires in primal woods. The wild beast leapt
Upon its prey and slew it as it slept.
Armies went forth to battle on the plain
So far, far down in that unfathomed deep
The living seemed as silent as the slain,