The sighing of a shaken reed,-- What can I more than meekly plead The greatness of our common need? God's love,--unchanging, pure, and true,-- The Paraclete white-shining through His peace,--the fall of Hermon's dew! With such a prayer, on this sweet day, As thou mayst hear and I may say, I greet thee, dearest, far away! 1851. KOSSUTH It can scarcely be necessary to say that there are elements in the character and passages in the history of the great Hungarian statesman and orator, which necessarily command the admiration of those, even, who believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human blood. Type of two mighty continents!--combining The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow Of Asian song and prophecy,--the shining Of Orient splendors over Northern snow! Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off At the same blow the fetters of the serf, Rearing the altar of his Fatherland On the firm base of freedom, and thereby Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand, Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie! Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall give Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive? Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying, Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain The swarthy Kossuths of our land again! Not he whose utterance now from lips designed The bugle-march of Liberty to wind, And call her hosts beneath the breaking light, The keen reveille of her morn of fight, Is but the hoarse note of the blood-hound's baying, The wolf's long howl behind the bondman's flight! Oh for the tongue of him who lies at rest In Quincy's shade of patrimonial trees, Last of the Puritan tribunes and the best, To lend a voice to Freedom's sympathies, And hail the coming of the noblest guest The Old World's wrong has given the New World of the West! 1851. TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER. AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England.