IV. Thank God! that I have lived to see the time Restraint upon him must consult his good, Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall, And Love look in upon his solitude. The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught Through long, dark centuries its way hath wrought Into the common mind and popular thought; And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore The humble fishers listened with hushed oar, Have found an echo in the general heart, And of the public faith become a living part. V. Who shall arrest this tendency?— Bring back Grope in the shadows of Man's twilight time, What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest ye brood O'er those foul altars streaming with warm blood, Permitted in another age and clime? Why cite that law with which the bigot Jew No evil in the Just One? To the dark cruel past? - Wherefore turn Can ye not learn From the pure Teacher's life, how mildly free The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no more No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke Urge to its loathsome work the hangman's hand? From its peeled shoulder your incumbrance cast, a pagan brotherhood! THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.* I. FAR from his close and noisome cell, Of summer's misty morn he shook; His light line in the rippling brook. With scent of flowers and crisping hay; An angel in home's vine-hung door, He saw his sister smile once more; *Some of the leading sectarian papers have lately published the letter of a clergyman, giving an account of his attendance upon a criminal (who had committed murder during a fit of intoxication), at the time of his execution, in Western New York. The writer describes the agony of the wretched being — his abortive attempts at prayer-his appeal for life—his fear of a violent death; and, after declaring his belief that the poor victim died without hope of salvation, concludes with a warm eulogy upon the Gallows, being more than ever convinced of its utility by the awful dread and horror which, it inspired. Once more the truant's brown-locked head II. He woke. At once on heart and brain A blackness in His morning light- Built up by demon hands at night. Creak as the wind its timbers shook. No dream for him of sin forgiven, While still that baleful spectre stood, With its hoarse murmur, "Blood for Blood!" Between him and the pitying Heaven! III. Low on his dungeon floor he knelt, And smote his breast, and on his chain, Whose iron clasp he always felt, His hot tears fell like rain; And near him, with the cold, calm look IV. He saw the victim's tortured brow The sweat of anguish starting thereThe record of a nameless woe In the dim eye's imploring stare, Seen hideous through the long, damp hair Fingers of ghastly skin and bone A vision of the eternal flame Its smoking cloud of agonies- Of fire-waves round the infernal wall; Two busy fiends attending there; One with cold mocking rite and prayer, Tightening the death-rope's strangling clasp ! |