Prue, my dearest Maid, is sick,
Almost to be Lunatick:
AEsculapius! come and bring
Means for her recovering;
And a gallant Cock shall be
Offer'd up by Her, to Thee.

The province I govern is humble and remote;
Yet our festivals follow the Courtly Calendar.
At rise of day we sacrificed to the Wind God,
When darkly, darkly, dawn glimmered in the sky.

Officers followed, horsemen led the way;
They brought us out to the wastes beyond the town,
Where river mists fall heavier than rain,
And the fires on the hill leap higher than the stars.

Suddenly I remembered the early levees at Court
When you and I galloped to the Purple Yard.
As we walked our horses up Dragon Tail Street

'Tis first the true and then the beautiful,
Not first the beautiful and then the true;
First the wild moor, with rock and reed and pool,
Then the gay garden, rich in scent and hue.

'Tis first the good and then the beautiful, —
Not first the beautiful and then the good;
First the rough seed, sown in the rougher soil,
Then the flower-blossom, or the branching wood.

Not first the glad and then the sorrowful, —
But first the sorrowful, and then the glad;
Tears for a day, — for earth of tears is full,
Then we forget that we were ever sad.

The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.

Lord with glowing heart I'd praise thee
For the bliss thy love bestows,
For the pardoning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows:

Help, O God, my weak endeavor;
This dull soul to rapture raise:
Thou must light the flame, or never
Can my love be warmed to praise.

Praise, my soul the God who sought thee,
Wretched wand'rer far astray;
Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee
From the paths of death away:

Praise, with love's devoutest feeling,
Him who saw thy guilt-born fear,

The Proud, majestic Southern sun,
Let fall a golden gleam;
It flickered through a leafy bower,
And fell aslant a traveler's brow,
And roused him from his dream.

A finer specimen of man,
Was never cast in clay;
A swarthy Hercules was he,
With that rash intrepidity,
Of manhood's earliest day.

He, an emancipated slave,
From Rappahanock's side;
Assured by Lincoln's strong decree,
Had journeyed southward, bold and free,
To claim his stolen bride.

From many a camp of Union men,

What, many times I musing ask'd, is Man,
If grief and care
Keep far from him? he knows not what he can,
What cannot bear.

He, till the fire hath proved him, doth remain
The main part dross:
To lack the loving discipline of pain
Were endless loss.

Yet when my Lord did ask me on what side
I were content,
The grief, whereby I must be purified,
To me were sent,

As each imagined anguish did appear,
As each withering bliss,
Before my soul, I cried, " Oh! spare me here:
Oh no, not this!" —

My soul is not at rest. There comes a strange
And secret whisper to my spirit, like
A dream of night, that tells me I am on
Enchanted ground. Why live I here? The vows
Of God are on me, and I may not stop
To play with shadows or pluck earthly flowers,
Till I my work have done, and rendered up
Account. The voice of my departed Lord:
" Go, teach all nations, " from the eastern world
Comes on the night air, and awakes my ear.

And I will go. I may no longer doubt
To give up friends, and home, and idol hopes,

Prosaic miles of streets stretch all around
Astir with restless, hurried life, and spanned
By arches that with thund'rous trains resound,
And throbbing wires that galvanise the land;
Gin-palaces in tawdry splendour stand;
The newsboys shriek of mangled bodies found;
The last burlesque is playing in the Strand —
In modern prose all poetry seems drowned.

Yet in ten thousand homes this April night
An ancient People celebrates its birth
To Freedom, with a reverential mirth,
With customs quaint and many a hoary rite,

See the Conqueror mounts in triumph,
See him come in royal state,
Like a laurelled king returning
To his joyful palace gate;
Hark! the choirs of angel voices
Joyful alleluyas sing,
And the portals wide are opened
To receive their heavenly King.

Who is this that comes in glory,
With the trump of jubilee?
Over battles, over armies,
He has gained the victory;
He who on the cross did suffer,
He who from the grave arose,
He has vanquished sin and Satan,
He by death has spoiled his foes.

Thou hast raised our human nature