THE REFORMER.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, BORN IN 1808, AT HAVERHILL,

IN MASSACHUSETTS.

ALL grim and soil'd, and brown with tan,
I saw a Strong One in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man,

Along his path.

The Church, beneath her trembling dome,
Essay'd in vain her ghostly charm;
Wealth shook within his gilded home

With pale alarm.

Fraud from his secret chambers fled,
Before the sunlight bursting in;
Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head,
To drown the din.

"Spare!" Art implored, "yon holy pile;

That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;"
Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle,

Cried out, "Forbear!"

Grey-headed Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped for his old accustom'd stone,
Lean'd on his staff, and wept to find

His seat o'erthrown.

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

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

I look'd aside; the dust-cloud roll'd-
The Waster seem'd the Builder too;

Upspringing from the ruin 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 fear'd;
The frown which awed me pass'd away,
And left behind a smile, which cheer'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 cottage-windows, flower-entwined,
Look'd 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 grew, and sunbeams stray'd,
And with the idle gallows rope

The young child play'd.

Where the doom'd victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours,
Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,

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
Which makes the past time serve to-day ;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.

Oh! 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.

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,
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— Ho! wake and watch! the world is grey

With morning light!

AUTUMNAL HYMN.

FROM ELEGIAC POEMS.

THE leaves around me falling
Are preaching of decay;
The hollow winds are calling,
"Come, pilgrim, come away!"

The day, in night declining,
Says, I must, too, decline;
The year its life reclining,
Its lot foreshadows mine.

The light my path surrounding,
The loves to which I cling,
The hopes within me bounding,
The joys that round me wing-
All melt like stars of even

Before the morning ray,
Pass upward into heaven,
And chide at my delay.

The friends gone there before me Are calling from on high,