Page:Poems (Bryant, 1821).djvu/19



Then waited not the murderer for the night,

But smote his brother down in the bright day,

And he who felt the wrong, and had the might,

His own avenger, girt himself to slay;

Beside the path the unburied carcass lay;

The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen,

Fled, while the robber swept his flock away,

And slew his babes. The sick, untended then,

Languish’d in the damp shade, and died afar from men.

But misery brought in love—in passion’s strife

Man gave his heart to mercy pleading long,

And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life;

The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong,

Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew strong.

States rose, and, in the shadow of their might,

The timid rested. To the reverent throng,

Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white,

Gave laws, and judg’d their strifes, and taught the way of right.