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VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED.

No. 10.

THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Some of the leading sectarian papers have lately published the letter of a clergyman, giving an account of his attendance upon a criminal, (who had committed murder during a fit of intoxication) at the time of his execution, in Western New York The writer describes the agony of the wretched being his abortive attempts at prayer-his appeal for life-his horror of a violent death; and after declaring his belief that the poor victim died without hope of salvation, concludes with a warm eulogy upon the Gallows, being more than ever convinced of its utility, by the awful dread and horror which it inspired.

Far from his close and noisome cell,
By grassy lane and sunny stream,
Blown clover-field and strawberry dell,
And green and meadow freshness, fell
The footsteps of his dream.
Again from careless feet, the dew

Of summer's misty morn he shook :
Again with merry heart he threw

His light line in the rippling brook.
Back crowded all his school-day joys-
He urged the ball and quoit again,
And heard the shout of laughing boys
Come ringing down the walnut glen.
Again he felt the western breeze,

Its scent of flowers and crisping hay;
And down again through wind-stirred trees
He saw the quivering sun-light play.
An angel in Home's vine-hung door,
He saw his sister smile once more;
Once more the truant's brown-locked head
Upon his mother's knee was laid,
And sweetly lulled in slumber there,
With evening's holy hymn and prayer!
He woke. At once on heart and brain
The present terror rushed again—
Clanked on his limbs the felon's chain!
He woke to hear the church tower tell
Time's footfall on the conscious bell,
And, shuddering, feel that clanging din
His life's last hour had ushered in;
To see within his prison-yard,
Through the small-window, iron-barred,
The Gallow's shadow rising dim
Between the sunrise heaven and him,—
A horror in God's blessed air-
A blackness in his morning light-

Like some foul devil-altar there
Built up by demon hands at night.
And, maddened by that evil sight,
Dark, horrible, confused and strange,
A chaos of wild, weltering change,
All power of check and guidance gone,
Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on.
In vain he strove to breathe a prayer,
In vain he turned the holy book,
He only heard the Gallows-stair
Creak, as the wind its timbers shook.
No dream for him of sin forgiven,

While still that baleful spectre stood,
With its hoarse murmur, "Blood for Blood!"
Between him and the pitying Heaven!

Low on his dungeon floor he knelt,

And smote his breast; and on his chain,
Whose demon clasp he always felt,

His hot tears fell like rain:
And near him, with the cold, calm look
And tone of one whose formal part,
Unwarmed, unsoftened of the heart,
Is measured out by rule and book,
With placid look and tranquil blood,
The hangman's ghostly ally stood,
Blessing with solemn text and word
The Gallows-drop and strangling cord:
Lending the Gospel's sacred awe
And sanction to the crime of Law.

He saw the victim's tortured brow-
The sweat of anguish starting there-
The record of a nameless woe

In the dim eye's imploring stare,
Seen hideous thro' the long, damp hair-
Fingers of ghastly skin and bone
Working and writhing on the stone!
And heard, by mortal terror wrung
From heaving breast and stiffened tongue,
The choking sob and low hoarse prayer;
As o'er his half-crazed fancy came
A vision of the eternal flame-
Its smoky cloud of agonies-
Its demon-worm that never dies-
The everlasting rise and fall
Of fire waves round the infernal wall:
While high above that dark red flood,
Black, giant like, the Gallows stood:
Two busy fiends attending there;
One with cold mocking rite and prayer,
The other with impatient grasp,

Tightening the death-rope's strangling clasp!

The unfelt rite at length was done

The prayer unheard at length was saidAn hour had passed :-the noon day sun

Smote on the features of the dead! And he who stood the doomed beside, Calm guager of the swelling tide Of mortal agony and fear, Heeding with curious eye and ear Whate'er revealed the keen excess Of man's extremest wretchedness: And who, in that dark anguish, saw An earnest of the victim's fate, The vengeful terrors of God's law, The kindlings of Eternal HateThe first drops of that fiery rain Which beats the dark red realm of Pain,Did he uplift his earnest cries

Against the crime of Law, which gave His brother to that fearful grave, Whereon Hope's moon-light never lies,

And Faith's white blossoms never wave To the soft breath of Memory's sighs ;Which sent a spirit marred and stained, By fiends of sin possessed, profaned, In madness and in blindness stark, Into the silent unknown dark? No-from the wild and shrinking dread With which he saw the victim led

Beneath the dark veil which divides
Ever the living from the dead,

And Nature's solemn secret hides,
The man of prayer can only draw
New reasons for his bloody Law;
New faith in staying Murder's hand,
By murder at that Law's command;
New reverence for the Gallows-rope,
As human nature's latest hope;
Last relic of the good old time,

When Power found license for its crime,
And held a writhing world in check
By that fell cord about its neck;
Stifled Sedition's rising shout,

Choked the young breath of Freedom out,
And timely checked the words which sprung
From Heresy's forbidden tongue;
While, in its noose of terror bound,
The Church its cherished union found,
Conforming, on the Moslem plan,
The motley-colored mind of man,
Not by the Koran and the Sword,
But by the Bible and the Cord!

Oh Thou! at whose rebuke the grave
Back to warm life the sleeper gave,
Beneath whose sad and tearful glance
The cold and changed countenance
Broke the still horror of its trance,
And waking saw with joy above,
A brother's face of tenderest love;

Thou, unto whom the blind and lame,
The sorrowing and the sin sick came,
And from Thy very garment's hem
Drew life and healing unto them,
The burthen of Thy holy faith
Was love and life, not hate and death:
Man's demon ministers of Pain,

The fiends of his revenge, were sent
From Thy pure Gospel's element
To their dark home again.

Thy name is Love! What then is he
Who in that name the Gallows rears,
An awful altar, built to Thee
With sacrifice of blood and tears?
Oh, once again Thy healing lay

On the blind eyes which know Thee not, And let the light of thy pure day

Melt in upon his darkened thought. Soften his hard, cold heart, and show

The power which in forbearance lies, And let him feel that Mercy now

is better than old sacrifice.

As on the White Sea's charmed shore,
The Parsee sees his holy hill
With dunnest smoke-clouds curtained o'er,
Yet knows beneath them evermore

The low pale fire is quivering still;
So, underneath its clouds of sin

The heart of man retaineth yet Gleams of its holy origin:

And half quenched stars that never set Dim colors of its faded bow,

And early beauty, linger there,
And o'er its wasted desert blow
Faint breathings of its morning air.
Oh! never yet upon the scroll
Of the sin-stained but priceless soul,

Hath Heaven inscribed " Despair!"
Cast not the clouded gem away,
Quench not the dim but living ray-

My brother man, Beware!

With that deep voice which, from the skies Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice,

God's angel cries, FORBEAR!

Poetry has been to me its own "exceeding great reward;" it has soothed my affliction; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.-Coleridge.

You cannot live for men, without living with them.

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Lord! the earth is thine,

And the fulness of the sea-
Heaps of gold, and gems that shine,
Flashing through the flashing brine,
All belong to Thee!
Underneath the yeasty waves,

Where the great sea-monsters roam,
Thou hast hollowed wond'rous caves
For their ocean home.
Where the huge Leviathan
Revels in his kingly might
Over beds of chrysolite,

Thou hast builded temples fairer-
Thou hast fashioned grottos rarer
Than the proudest works of man.
There uncounted treasures lie
Hidden deep from human eye;
Lustrous gems, whose radiant gleams
Sparkle aye in starry beams.
All the wonders of the sea,

All the gems that flash and shine
Underneath the ocean-brine,
God! belong to Thee!

Lord! the earth is thine,

And the fulness of the earth!
Thou, in sovereignty of will,
From thine everlasting hill,
Called the light-the VOICE DIVINE
O'er the formless void went forth,
And the darkness fled!
From the mass chaotic hurled
Rose to life this wond'rous world-
Suns and stars with constant force
And undeviating course

In their orbits sped.

Tree, and plant, and opening flower,
In their virgin beauty drest,
Heard the mandate, and Thy power
Instantly confessed.

All by Thee were called to birth,
Sole PROPRIETOR of Earth.
Thine is every living thing-

From the sluggish worm that crawls
O'er the dungeon's slimy walls,
To the forest's tameless king-
And the bird, whose rapid wing
Flashes in the glad sunshine,
As it soars aloft, to fling
Out upon the gales of spring

Gifts of song that seem divine--
Insect, beast, and bird are thine!
Formed by Thy creating hand,
Heedful all to Thy command.

Hills arrayed in living green,

Where the sunshine loves to linger, And the wind with wizard finger, Trifles with the springing grassWaters singing as they pass, (Pauses none to intervene,) With a low and pleasant tune, All the leafy time of JuneValleys with the sunshine dancing On their verdant slopes, and glancing Downward to their deepest beds

Forests, regally uplifting

To the clouds their crowned heads-
And the undulating plain

Swaying with the swaying grain-
These are Thine-and Thine the sky,
With its gorgeous pageantry,

And its shadows ever shifting.
Wait they all upon thy word,
Nature's universal Lord!

Then to Thee, of life the Giver,
Praises be ascribed for ever!
Thine be thanks and adoration,
Thine be songs of exultation:

Thanks and songs for ever given— Every voice in concert sounding, Every heart with rapture bounding, All harmonious anthems blending, Louder swelling as ascendingTribute of the earth to Heaven!

H. A. B.

Deem not, Beloved! that the glow

Of love with youth will know decay—
For though the wing of time may throw
A shadow o'er our way;
The sunshine of a cloudless faith,
The calmness of a holy trust,
Shall linger in our hearts till Death
Consigns our dust to dust!"

The fervid passion of our youth---
The fervor of Affection's kiss-
Love, born of purity and truth—
All pleasant memories-
These still are ours, while looking back
Upon the Past with dewy eyes;
Oh dearest! on Life's vanished track
How much of sunshine lies!

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Something of beauty from thy brow,
Something of lightness from thy tread,
Hath passed-yet thou art dearer now
Than when our vows were said.
A softer beauty round thee gleams
Chastened by time, yet calmly bright;
And from thine eye of hazel, beams
A deeper, tenderer light-

An emblem of the love which lives

Through every change, as time departs; Which binds our souls in one, and gives New gladness to our hearts! Flinging a halo over life

Like that which gilds the life beyond! Ah! well I know thy thoughts, dear wife! To thoughts like these respond.

The mother, with her dewy eye,

Is dearer than the blushing bride
Who stood, three happy years gone by,
In beauty by my side!

OUR FATHER, throned in light above,
Hath blessed us with a fairy child-
A bright link in the chain of love—
The pure and undefiled:

Rich in the heart's best treasure, still

With a calm trust we'll journey on,
Linked heart with heart, dear wife! until
Life's pilgrimage be done!
Youth-beauty-passion-these will pass
Like every thing of earth away—
The breath-stains on the polished glass
Less transient are than they.

But love dies not-the child of God-
The soother of Life's many woes-
She scatters fragrance round the sod
Where buried hopes repose!

She leads us with her radiant hand

Earth's pleasant streams and pasture by,

Still pointing to a better land

Of bliss beyond the sky!

MARY HOWITT.

Priestess of Nature! in the solemn woods

And by the sullen sea, whose ceaseless roar
Speaks of God's majesty for evermore,

And where the cataracts dash their shattered floods
Down to the iris-girdled gulfs which yawn

Eternally beneath, thy hand hath reared Altars whereon no blood-stain hath appearedBut there, at dewy eve, or kindling dawn, Meek-hearted children, with their offerings Of buds or bursting flowers, together kneel In gladdest worship, till their spirits feel A new and holier baptism; while the springs Of joy are opened, and their waters flow Forth to the laughing light, exulting as they go!

TO MY QUAKER COUSIN. "Don't tell me of the feelings, the fine sensibilities, the hope and joy, and the true poetry of man's life being blunted by the increase of years! Why, I'll hate old age, if it is true! Make this, if thee pleases, no longer an apology for the laziness thee is guilty of when thee ceases to give us and every body the scintillations of thy poetical genius.' It is not that thy days are in the yellow leaf,' but that they are days of downright-laziness!"

Extract from her letter.

Yes, thou art right, sweet coz! I own

I am a lazy rhymer-very,-
And seldom gives my harp a tone

Of willing music, sad or merry;
Its strings are snapped, or out of tune,
And I myself am out of fashion,
For wailing ditties to the moon
Was never my peculiar passion.

I never wet my thirsty lip

At Helicon's inspiring fountain, Nor even in fancy took a trip

To meet the Muses on their mountain. The voice of Fame is sweet enough, Doubtless, for devotees who love her, But then her hill is quite too rough

And steep for me to clamber over.

Lazy and uninspired, can I

Write for thee canzonet or sonnet?
Or, smitten by thy beauty, try

To perpetrate a song upon it?
No-though thy charms of face and form

Would madden, like a heavenly vision,
When wine and love had rendered warm
Some dreamer of the fields Elysian!
No-though the wicked world should swear
Thou art the latest importation

From that bright realm where seraphs are
Bending for aye in adoration!

For beauty is at discount now

With the dull muse that weaves my numbers,

Nor laughing eye, nor polished brow,
Gleams on her in her dreamless slumbers.

But, for the brightness of thy youth,

And for the chastened love I bear thee,

And for thy gentleness and truth,

Which even thievish Time must spare thee, And for thy heart which overflows

With kindness for the wronged and lowly, And for thy guileless soul which glows With tenderest feelings, pure and holyAnd for that fervent zeal for Right

Which burneth in thy bosom ever, And for that steadfast faith whose might In perils's hour shall fail thee never

For human sympathies, which bring

True hearts around thee to adore thee

For these, dear coz! I kneel and fling
The tribute of my song before thee.

Others may sonnetize the spell

That lives within thy radiant glances, And lying bardlings boldly tell

That loveliness around thee dances; Vows may be offered thee in rhyme,

And worship paid in common metre But these will pass with passing time, For beauty than the wind is fleeter.

Be mine the better task to find

For thee a tribute undegrading: Flowers from the garden of the mind, Fragrant and pure, and never fadingGems from the mines of knowledge won, Brighter than fancy ever paintedAn offering to lay upon

The altar of a heart untainted.

So, when the hand of Time hath reft
From face and form thy youthful graces,

A tenderer beauty shall be left

To sanctify their fading traces; A chastened radiance, born of Thought, Around thy path shall then be shining, With more than earthly brightness fraught, To gild and bless thy life's declining!

STANZAS,

TO THE ABOLITIONISTS OF AMERICA.

Toil and pray!

Groweth flesh and spirit faint? Think of her who pours her plaint All the day

Her-the wretched negro wife, Robbed of all that sweetens lifeHer-who weeps in anguish wild For the husband and the child

Torn away!

Nature's ties,

Binding heart with kindred heart,
Rent remorselessly apart-

Tears and sighs,
Shrieks and prayers unheeded given,
Calling out from earth to heaven-
All that speaks the slave's distress-
All that in his cup doth press
Agonies-

Wo and blight,

Broken heart and palsied mind, Reason crushed and conscience blind, Darkest night

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He worthy is of freedom-only he
Who claims the boon for all-and, strong in right,
Rebukes the proud oppressor by whose might
The poor are crushed-for TRUTH hath made him free,
And Love hath sanctified his liberty!
When Tyranny his horrid head uprears,

And blasts the earth with pestilential breath,
Girded with righteousness and strong in faith,
He stems the tide of wrong; nor scoffs, nor jeers,
Nor ruffian threats, nor fierce mobocracy,
Can daunt his soul, or turn him from the path

Where duty points. Not his the craven heart That shrinks when tyrants bluster in their wrath; But well in Freedom's strife he bears his part.

SOLITUDE.

The ceaseless hum of men-the dusty streets,
Crowded with multitudinous life-the din
Of toil and traffic-and the wo and sin,
The dweller in the populous city meets-
These have I left to seek the cool retreats
Of the untrodden forest, where, in bowers
Builded by Nature's hand, inlaid with flowers,
And roofed with ivy, on the mossy seats
Reclining, I can while away the hours
In sweetest converse with old books, or give
My thoughts to God-or fancies fugitive

Indulge, while over me their radiant showers Of rarest blossoms the old trees shake down,And thanks to HIM my meditations crown!

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