Unknown to power or place, yet where The sun looks o'er the Carib sea, It blended with the freeman's prayer And song of jubilee. He told of England's sin and wrong, The ills her suffering children know, The squalor of the city's throng, The green field's want and woe. O'er Channing's face the tenderness Of sympathetic sorrow stole, Like a still shadow, passionless, The sorrow of the soul. But when the generous Briton told How hearts were answering to his own, And Freedom's rising murmur rolled Up to the dull-eared throne, I saw, methought, a glad surprise Thrill through that frail and pain-worn frame, And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes, A still and earnest flame. His few, brief words were such as move The human heart,--the Faith-sown seeds Which ripen in the soil of love To high heroic deeds. No bars of sect or clime were felt, The Babel strife of tongues had ceased, And at one common altar knelt The Quaker and the priest. And not in vain: with strength renewed, And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim, For that brief meeting, each pursued The path allotted him. How echoes yet each Western hill And vale with Channing's dying word! How are the hearts of freemen still By that great warning stirred. The stranger treads his native soil, And pleads, with zeal unfelt before, The honest right of British toil, The claim of England's poor. Before him time-wrought barriers fall, Old fears subside, old hatreds melt, And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall, The Saxon greets the Celt. The yeoman on the Scottish lines, The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim, The delver in the Cornwall mines, Look up with hope to him. Swart smiters of the glowing steel, Dark feeders of the forge's flame, Pale watchers at the loom and wheel, Repeat his honored name. And thus the influence of that hour Of converse on Rhode Island's strand Lives in the calm, resistless power Which moves our fatherland. God blesses still the generous thought, And still the fitting word He speeds And Truth, at His requiring taught, He quickens into deeds. Where is the victory of the grave? What dust upon the spirit lies? God keeps the sacred life he gave,-- The prophet never dies! 1844. TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER. Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this excellent woman." Thine is a grief, the depth of which another May never know; Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother! To thee I go. I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding Thy hand in mine; With even the weakness of my soul upholding The strength of thine.