Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/372

340   But even-paced come round the years,
 * And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
 * With songs our groans of pain;

She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
 * The war-field’s crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon’s pause, we hear
 * Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm;

Too near to God for doubt or fear,
 * She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below
 * The fires that blast and burn;

For all the tears of blood we sow
 * She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours
 * The good of suffering born,—

The hearts that blossom like her flowers,
 * And ripen like her corn.

Oh, give to us, in times like these,
 * The vision of her eyes;

And make her fields and fruited trees
 * Our golden prophecies!

Oh, give to us her finer ear!
 * Above this stormy din,

We too would hear the bells of cheer
 * Ring peace and freedom in.

, slave to Milcho of the herds Of Ballymena, wakened with these words:
 * “Arise, and flee

Out from the land of bondage, and be free!”

Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven The angels singing of his sins forgiven,
 * And, wondering, sees

His prison opening to their golden keys.

He rose a man who laid him down a slave, Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,
 * And outward trod

Into the glorious liberty of God.

He cast the symbols of his shame away; And, passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,
 * Though back and limb

Smarted with wrong, he prayed, “God pardon him!”

So went he forth; but in God’s time he came To light on Uilline’s hills a holy flame;
 * And, dying, gave

The land a saint that lost him as a slave.