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Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes,
O'erhung with paly locks of gold,—
"Why smite," he asked in sad surprise,
"The fair, the old?"

Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke,
Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam;
Shuddering and sick of heart I woke,
As from a dream.

aside the dust-cloud rolled,-
The Waster seemed the Builder too;
Up-springing from the ruined Old
I saw the New.

'Twas but the ruin of the bad,

The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Was living still.

Calm grew the brows of him I feared;
The frown which awed me passed away,
And left behind a smile which cheered
Like breaking day.

The grain grew green on battle-plains,
O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow;
The slave stood forging from his chains
The spade and plough.

Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay,

And cottage windows flower-entwined,

Looked out upon the peaceful bay
And hills behind.

Through vine-wreathed cups, with wine once red,
The lights on brimming crystal fell,
Drawn sparkling from the rivulet-head

And mossy well.

Through prison-walls, like Heaven-sent hope, Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed,

And with the idle gallows-rope

The young child played.

Where the doomed victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours,
Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,
Came crowned with flowers.

Grown wiser for the lesson given,
I fear no longer, for I know
That, where the share is deepest driven,
The best fruits grow.

The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone,—

These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.

O backward-looking son of time!
The new is old, the old is new,
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.

So wisely taught the Indian seer;

Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same.

Idly as thou, in that old day

Thou mournest, did thy sire repine;
So, in his time, thy child grown grey
Shall sigh for thine.

But life shall on and upward go;
The eternal step of Progress beats
To that great anthem, calm and slow,
Which God repeats.

Take heart-the Waster builds again,—
A charmed life old Goodness hath;
The tares may perish, but the grain
Is not for death.

God works in all things; all obey

His first propulsion from the night:
Wake thou and watch!-the world is grey
With morning light!

CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.

[In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, S. C., on the 4th of the 9th month, 1835, published in the Courier of that city, it is stated, "The clergy of all denominations attended in a body, lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene."]

JUST God!—and these are they

Who minister at thine altar, God of Right!
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay
On Israel's Ark of light!

What! preach, and kidnap men?
Give thanks,—and rob thy own afflicted poor?
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door?

What! servants of thy own

Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast,-fettering down
The tasked and plundered slave!

Pilate and Herod friends!

Chief priests and rulers as of old combine!
Just God and holy! is that church, which lends
Strength to the spoiler, thine?

Paid hypocrites, who turn

Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book

Of those high words of truth which search and burn In warning and rebuke;

Feed fat, ye locusts, feed!

And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord
That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,
Ye pile your own full board.

How long, O Lord! how long
Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,
And, in thy name, for robbery and wrong
At thy own altars pray?

Is not thy hand stretched forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite?
Shall not the living God of all the earth,
And heaven above, do right?

Woe then to all who grind

Their brethren of a common Father down!
To all who plunder from the immortal mind
Its bright and glorious crown!

Woe to the priesthood! woe

To those whose hire is with the price of blood,—
Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go,
The searching truths of God!

Their glory and their might

Shall perish; and their very names shall be
Vile before all the people, ir the light

Of a world's liberty.

Oh speed the moment on

When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love
And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known,
As in their home above!

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THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

[In a late publication of L. T. Tasistro,-Random Shots and Southern Breezes, — is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the stand as 66 A GOOD CHRISTIAN!']

"A CHRISTIAN! going, gone!"

Who bids for God's own image?-for his grace,
Which that poor victim of the market-place
Hath in her suffering won?

My God! can such things be?

Hast thou not said that whatsoe'er is done
Unto thy weakest and thy humblest one
Is even done to thee?

In that sad victim, then,

Child of thy pitying love, I see thee stand,-
Once more the jest-word of a mocking band,
Bound, sold, and scourged again!

A Christian up for sale!

Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame,
Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame,
Her patience shall not fail!

A heathen hand might deal

Back on your heads the gathered wrong of
But her low broken prayer and nightly tears
Ye neither heed nor feel.

Con well thy lesson o'er,

years;

Thou prudent teacher,―tell the toiling slave
No dangerous tale of Him who came to save
The outcast and the poor.

But wisely shut the ray

Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart,
And to her darkened mind alone impart

One stern command,-OBEY!

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