Space grants beyond his fated road
No inch to the god of day;
And copious language still bestowed
One word, no more, to say.

HYMN

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT

April 19, 1836

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

ODE

INSCRIBED TO W. H. CHANNING

THOUGH loath to grieve

The evil time's sole patriot,

I cannot leave

My honeyed thought

For the priest's cant

Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse

My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse

Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States

Harrying Mexico

With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent bolder,

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer? I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!

And in thy valleys, Agiochook!

The jackals of the negro-holder.

The God who made New Hampshire

Taunted the lofty land

With little men;-
Small bat and wren

House in the oak:

If earth-fire cleave

The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
The Southern crocodile would grieve.

Virtue palters; Right is hence;

Freedom praised, but hid;

Funeral eloquence

Rattles the coffin-lid.

What boots thy zeal,

O glowing friend,

That would indignant rend

Nor bid the unwilling senator

Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
Every one to his chosen work;—
Foolish hands may mix and mar;
Wise and sure the issues are.
Round they roll till dark is light,
Sex to sex, and even to odd;—
The over-god

Who marries Right to Might.
Who peoples, unpeoples,-
He who exterminates

Races by stronger races,
Black by white faces,—
Knows to bring honey
Out of the lion;
Grafts gentlest scion
On pirate and Turk.

Half for freedom strike and stand;

The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

FREEDOM

ONCE I wished I might rehearse

Freedom's pæan in my verse,

That the slave who caught the strain
Should throb until he snapped his chain.

But the Spirit said, "Not so;
Speak it not, or speak it low;
Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,

Passion not to be expressed

But by heaving of the breast:

Yet, wouldst thou the mountain find
Where this deity is shrined,

Who gives to seas and sunset skies
Their unspent beauty of surprise,
And, when it lists him, waken can
Brute or savage into man;
Or, if in thy heart he shine,
Blends the starry fates with thine,
Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
Freedom's secret wilt thou know?—
Counsel not with flesh and blood;
Loiter not for cloak or food;

Right thou feelest, rush to do."

ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL

CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857

O TENDERLY the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire;

One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to town,
Our pulses are not less,

The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
Which children's voices bless.

For He that flung the broad blue fold
O'er-mantling land and sea,

One third part of the sky unrolled
For the banner of the free.

The men are ripe of Saxon kind
To build an equal state,―