Do I not fear for the judgment hour? So unrepentant, so hard and cold? Wait! It is little I trust in that; but if ever the scrolled sky shall be uprolled, And the lives of men shall be read and known, and their acts be judged by their very worth, And the Christ you speak of shall come again, and the thunders of Justice shake the earth, You will hear the cry, "Who murdered here? Come forth to the judgment, false heart and eyes, That pulsed with accurséd strength of lust, and loaded faith with envenomed lies! Come forth to the judgment, haughty dames, who scathed the mother with your scorn, And answer here, to the poisoned child, _who_ decreed its murder ere it was born? Come forth to the judgment ye who heaped the gold of earth in your treasured hoard, And answer, 'guilty,' to those who stood all naked and starving, beneath your board. Depart, accurséd! I know you not! Ye heeded not the command of Heaven, 'Unto the least of these ye give, it is even unto the Master given.'" Judgment! Ah, sir, to see that day, I'd willingly pass thro' a hundred hells! I'd believe, then, the Justice that hears each voice buried alive in these prison cells! But, no--it's not that; that will never be! I trusted too long, and He answered not. There _is_ no avenging God on high!--we live, we struggle, and--_we rot_. _Yet does Justice come!_ and, O Future Years! sorely ye'll reap, and in weary pain, When ye garner the sheaves that are sown to-day, when the clouds that are gathering fall in rain! The time will come, aye! the time _will_ come, when the child ye conceive in lust and shame, Quickened, will mow you like swaths of grass, with a sickle born of Steel and Flame. Aye, tremble, shrink, in your drunken den, coward, traitor, and Child of Lie! The unerring avenger stands close to you, and the dread hour of parturition's nigh! Aye! wring your hands, for the air is black! thickly the cloud-troops whirl and swarm! See! yonder, on the horizon's verge, play the lightning-shafts of the coming storm! =Adrian, Mich.,= July, 1889. OPTIMISM There's a love supreme in the great hereafter, The buds of earth are blooms in heaven; The smiles of the world are ripples of laughter When back to its Aidenn the soul is given: And the tears of the world, though long in flowing, Water the fields of the bye-and-bye; They fall as dews on the sweet grass growing When the fountains of sorrow and grief run dry. Though clouds hang over the furrows now sowing There's a harvest sun-wreath in the After-sky!