University of Virginia Library

SONNETS FOR THE TIMES.

I.
THE DARK TOWER.

“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.” What then?
The poet paints a mystery weird and dark,
Full of foreboding. Bones and corpses stark,
On blighted moorland and in rotting fen,
Under the knight's adventurous feet protrude.
Voices like gusts of wind, warning and taunt,
Stun his bewildered ears. The sunset slant
Shows the Black Tower against a sky of blood.
The hills like gloomy giants watch to see
His fall, as others fell. He dauntless blows
His horn, and fights, and tells the tale. So he
Who our grim tower of slavery overthrows
Shall well inspire our future minstrel's strain,
True son of knighthood, Roland come again.

II.
DELIVERANCE.

For never was a darker dungeon built
By king or pope in the old, wicked time,—
The lurid centuries when the lords of crime
Walked shameless in their robes of chartered guilt;
Churchman and statesman vying which could dye
With reddest ink of blood the historic page.
They played their part. But our illumined age
Brooks not the insult, and flings back the lie,
When slave lords fight against the eternal tides,
When truth is twisted from its straight intent,
And freedom blighted in its loveliest spring.
The mask where hatred smiles and treachery hides
Is torn away at last. The war-clouds bring
Deliverance from our long imprisonment.

III.
THE ABOLITIONISTS.

Brave men, far-sighted seers! who on the rim
Of your high battlements looked clearly forth
Over the fog that stretched from south to north,
And called with warning voices down the dim
Blind valleys, “Men are children all of Him
Who made us all,”—our cause for pride is slight,
That now so late we see the eternal Right
Shining like wings of heavenly seraphim.
True prophets, who discerned the cloud of war
Rise from the mist of long, delusive peace,
Pardon the eyes that could not pierce so far.
Long since the people's fears and doubtings cease;
Our hands no longer in the darkness grope:
We share with you your toil, your faith, your hope.

IV.
THE DAWN OF PEACE.

Four years of war have driven afar the dream
Of union based on hollow compromise.
We wake to see the auroral splendors stream
Across the battle smoke from opening skies.
The demon, shrieking, tears us as he flies
Exorcised from our wrenched and bleeding frame.
O costly ransom! dearly purchased prize!
Release too long delayed! from sin and shame,
From evil compacts and from brutal laws,
Whose iron network all the land encaged.
Force never triumphed in a juster cause,
Nor bloody war was e'er so justly waged.
Henceforth our banner greets a cloudless morn.
Peace dawns at last. The nation is re-born!

V.
THE DEATH-BLOW.

But yesterday the exulting nation's shout
Swelled on the breeze of victory through our streets;
But yesterday our gay flags flaunted out
Like flowers the south-wind wooes from their retreats,—
Flowers of the Union, blue and white and red,
Blooming on balcony and spire and mast,
Telling us that war's wintry storm had fled,
And spring was more than spring to us at last.
To-day,—the nation's heart lies crushed and weak;
Drooping and draped in black our banners stand.
Too stunned to cry revenge, we scarce may speak
The grief that chokes all utterance through the land.
God is in all. With tears our eyes are dim,
Yet strive through darkness to look up to Him!

VI.
THE MARTYR.

No, not in vain he died, not all in vain,—
Our good, great President. This people's hands
Are linked together in one mighty chain,
Knit tighter now in triple woven bands,
To crush the fiends in human mask, whose might
We suffer, O, too long! No league or truce
Save men with men. The devils we must fight
With fire. God wills it in this deed. This use
We draw from the most impious murder done
Since Calvary. Rise, then, O countrymen!
Scatter these marsh-light hopes of union won
Through pardoning clemency. Strike, strike again!
Draw closer round the foe a girdling flame!
We are stabbed whene'er we spare. Strike, in God's name!

VII.
OUR COUNTRY.

As on some stately ship, with land in view,
The last sea-swell beneath her gliding keel.
Sudden, like God's hand clad in blinding steel,
A thunder-bolt falls crashing from the blue,
Shattering the mast, a sulphurous cloud rolls through
The sails and rigging, while with quivering lips
The sailors see the deck all strewn with chips
And shreds and splinters, yet make all ado
To mend their loss, and still the ship sails on:
So, reeling from the shock, our Ship of State
Repairs the chasm left by the fall of him
Who stood her mainmast: onward we have gone;
Sound at the core, though tossed by storms but late,
Nearing our port, we cross the shadows dim.