Thank God! that I have lived to see the time When the great truth begins at last to find An utterance from the deep heart of mankind, Earnest and clear, that ALL REVENGE IS CRIME! That man is holier than a creed, — that all 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.
Who shall arrest this tendency?— Bring back The cells of Venice and the bigot's rack? Harden the softening human heart again To cold indifference to a brother's pain? Ye most unhappy men !-who, turned away From the mild sunshine of the Gospel day,
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 Rebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he knew No evil in the Just One ?- Wherefore turn To the dark cruel past? - Can ye not learn From the pure Teacher's life, how mildly free Is the great Gospel of Humanity?
The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no more Mexitli's altars soak with human gore,
No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke Through the green arches of the Druid's oak; And ye of milder faith, with your high claim Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest name, Will ye become the Druids of our time? Set up your scaffold-altars in our land, And, consecrators of Law's darkest crime,
Urge to its loathsome work the hangman's hand? Beware-lest human nature, roused at last, From its peeled shoulder your incumbrance cast, And, sick to loathing of your cry for blood, Rank ye with those who led their victims round The Celt's red altar and the Indian's mound, Abhorred of Earth and Heaven
FAR from his close and noisome cell, By grassy lane and sunny stream, Blown clover field and strawberry dell, And green and meadow freshness, fell The footsteps of his dream. Again from careless feet the dew
Of summer's misty morn he shook; Again with merry heart he threw
His light line in the rippling brook. Back crowded all his school-day joys- He urged the ball and quoit again, And heard the shout of laughing boys Come ringing down the walnut glen.
Again he felt the western breeze,
With scent of flowers and crisping hay; And down again through wind-stirred trees He saw the quivering sunlight play. 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 Upon his mother's knee was laid, And sweetly lulled to slumber there, With evening's holy hymn and prayer!
He woke. At once on heart and brain The present Terror rushed again Clanked on his limbs the felon's chain ! He woke, to hear the church-tower tell Time's footfall on the conscious bell, And, shuddering, feel that clanging din His life's LAST HOUR had ushered in ; To see within his prison yard, Through the small window, iron barred, The gallows shadow rising dim Between the sunrise heaven and him, A horror in God's blessed air-
A blackness in His morning light
I Like some foul devil-altar there
Built up by demon hands at night. And, maddened by that evil sight, Dark, horrible, confused, and strange, A chaos of wild, weltering change, All power of check and guidance gone, Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on. In vain he strove to breathe a prayer, In vain he turned the Holy Book, He only heard the gallows-stair
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!
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 And tone of one whose formal part, Unwarmed, unsoftened of the heart, Is measured out by rule and book, With placid lip and tranquil blood, The hangman's ghostly ally stood, Blessing with solemn text and word The gallows-drop and strangling cord; Lending the sacred Gospel's awe And sanction to the crime of Law.
He saw the victim's tortured brow
The sweat of anguish starting there The 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 Working and writhing on the stone !
And heard, by mortal terror wrung
From heaving breast and stiffened tongue, The choking sob and low hoarse prayer; As o'er his half-crazed fancy came
A vision of the eternal flame
Its smoking cloud of agonies - Its demon-worm that never dies The everlasting rise and fall Of fire-waves round the infernal wall; While high above that dark red flood, Black, giant-like, the gallows stood:
Two busy fiends attending there;
One with cold mocking rite and prayer,
The other, with impatient grasp,
Tightening the death-rope's strangling clasp !
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