Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/438

430 With pressed lips as bloodless
 * As lips of the slain!

Kiss down the young eyelids,
 * Smooth down the gray hairs;

Let tears quench the curses
 * That burn through your prayers.

Strong man of the prairies,
 * Mourn bitter and wild!

Wail, desolate woman!
 * Weep, fatherless child!

But the grain of God springs up
 * From ashes beneath,

And the crown of His harvest
 * Is life out of death.

Not in vain on the dial
 * The shade moves along

To point the great contrasts
 * Of right and of wrong:

Free homes and free altars,
 * And fields of ripe food;

The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,
 * Whose bloom is of blood.

On the lintels of Kansas
 * That blood shall not dry;

Henceforth the Bad Angel
 * Shall harmless go by;

Henceforth to the sunset,
 * Unchecked on her way,

Shall Liberty follow
 * The march of the day.

ancient statue of Minerva, in the Villa Albani, was characterized as the Goddess of Wisdom by an aged countenance. Phidias reformed this idea, and gave to her beauty and youth. Previous artists had imitated Nature too carelessly,—not deeply perceiving that wisdom and virtue, striving in man to resist senescence and decay, must in a goddess accomplish their purpose, and preserve her in perpetual bloom. Yet even decay and disease are often ineffectual; the young soul gleams through these impediments, and would be poorly expressed in figures of age. Accepting, therefore, this ideal representation, age and wisdom can never be companions; youth is wise, and age is imbecile.

Our childhood grows in value as we grow in years. It is to that time that every one refers the influence which reaches to his present and somehow moulds it. It may have been an insignificant circumstance,—a word,—a book,—praise or reproof;