"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me.'

Then Freedom sternly said: 'I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won. 30

'I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.

The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta's charges sped.

But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.

ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER1

ANDREW RYKMAN's dead and gone;

You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date.

'Trust is truer than our fears,'

Runs the legend through the moss, 'Gain is not in added years,

Nor in death is loss."

Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him.

There the dews of quiet fall,
Singing birds and soft winds stray:
Shall the tender Heart of all
Be less kind than they?

What he was and what he is

They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind.

Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare
Shape in words a mortal's prayer!
Prayer, that, when my day is done,
And I see its setting sun,

Shorn and beamless, cold and dim,
Sink beneath the horizon's rim,-
When this ball of rock and clay
Crumbles from my feet away,
And the solid shores of sense
Melt into the vague immense,
Father! I may come to Thee
Even with the beggar's plea,
As the poorest of thy poor,
With my needs, and nothing more.

Not as one who seeks his home
With a step assured I come;
Still behind the tread I hear
Of my life-companion, Fear;
Still a shadow deep and vast
From my westering feet is cast,

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1 In June, 1862, Whittier wrote to Fields, then editor of the Atlantic: I have by me a poem upon which I have bestowed much thought, and which I think is in some respects the best thing I have ever written. I will bring it or send it soon.' This poem was ' Andrew Rykman's Prayer.'

When I love Thee more than fear Thee,
And thy blessed Christ seems near me,
With forgiving look, as when
He beheld the Magdalen.

Well I know that all things move
To the spheral rhythm of love, -
That to Thee, O Lord of all!
Nothing can of chance befall:
Child and seraph, mote and star,
Well Thou knowest what we are!
Through thy vast creative plan
Looking, from the worm to man,
There is pity in thine eyes,
But no hatred nor surprise.
Not in blind caprice of will,
Not in cunning sleight of skill,
Not for show of power, was wrought
Nature's marvel in thy thought.
Never careless hand and vain
Smites these chords of joy and pain;
No immortal selfishness

Plays the game of curse and bless:
Heaven and earth are witnesses

That thy glory goodness is.
Not for sport of mind and force
Hast Thou made thy universe,
But as atmosphere and zone
Of thy loving heart alone.
Man, who walketh in a show,
Sees before him, to and fro,
Shadow and illusion go;
All things flow and fluctuate,
Now contract and now dilate.
In the welter of this sea,
Nothing stable is but Thee;
In this whirl of swooning trance,
Thou alone art permanence;
All without Thee only seems,
All beside is choice of dreams.
Never yet in darkest mood
Doubted I that Thou wast good,

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