THE REFORMER. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, BORN IN 1808, AT HAVERHILL, IN MASSACHUSETTS. ALL grim and soil'd, and brown with tan, Along his path. The Church, beneath her trembling dome, With pale alarm. Fraud from his secret chambers fled, "Spare!" Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;" Cried out, "Forbear!" Grey-headed Use, who, deaf and blind, His seat o'erthrown. Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke, I look'd aside; the dust-cloud roll'd- Upspringing from the ruin old, I saw the new. 'Twas but the ruin of the bad- Calm grew the brows of him I fear'd; Like breaking day. Green grew the grass on battle plains, O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow; The slave stood forging from his chains The spade and plough. Where frown'd the fort, pavilions gay, And hills behind. Through vine-wreathed cups, with wine once red, Through prison walls, like heaven-sent hope, The young child play'd. Where the doom'd victim in his cell Came crown'd 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 out-worn 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 Oh! backward looking son of time! Still sweeping through. So wisely taught the Indian seer; As idly as in that old day Thou mournest, did thy sires repine, So, in his time, thy child grown grey, Shall sigh for thine. Yet, not the less for them or thou, Take heart! the Waster builds again, God works in all things; all obey His first propulsion from the night— Ho! wake and watch! the world is grey With morning light! AUTUMNAL HYMN. FROM ELEGIAC POEMS. THE leaves around me falling The day, in night declining, The light my path surrounding, Before the morning ray, The friends gone there before me Are calling from on high, |