Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/275



thou gorged and mighty sepulchre! How find'st thou room for all the born of clay, From him, the sire of Eden, to the babe That gasps this hour? Why need we join the race For shadows on thy surface? hastening on Ourselves like shadows, to the common home That waits the dead. What boots a broad domain, A lordly heritage, for which are feuds, Heart-burnings, and, perchance, a brother's blood?

—Show me the face, upon thy country's map, Of that estate which lust hath coveted And fraud obtain'd. Show me its waving trees, Its pleasant hillocks, and its corn-clad vales. Thou canst not! Boast they not one narrow space Upon the picture? Yet for this a soul Hath lost its place in Heaven! And shall we throw Love, truth, and conscience in the ill-poised scale, Bidding some little modicum of gold Outweigh them all? I thought that I had read There was a judgment, where the deeds of men Met just reward. But they who lightly look