Far in thy realm withdrawn

Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone

Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,

Youth, manhood, age, that draws us to the ground, And last, man's life on earth,

Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,

Thou hast my earlier friends-the good-the kind, Yielded to thee with tears

The venerable form-the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring

The lost ones back: yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring

Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain thy gates deny

All passage save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye

Thou giv'st them back, nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide.

Beauty and excellence unknown to thee
Earth's wonder and her pride

Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labors of good to man, Unpublish'd charity, unbroken faith: Love, that midst grief began,

And grew with years, and falter'd not in death.

Full many a mighty name

Lurks in thy depths, unutter'd, unrevered;
With thee are silent fame,

Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappear'd.

Thine for a space are they:

Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last;
Thy gates shall yet give way,

Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair

Has gone into thy womb from earliest time,
Shall then come forth, to wear

The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perish'd-no!

Kind words, remember'd voices once so sweet,
Smiles, radiant long ago,

And features, the great soul's apparent seat,

All shall come back; each tie
Of pure affection shall be knit again;
Alone shall Evil die,

And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold

Him by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her who, still and cold,

Fills the next grave-the beautiful and young.

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.1

Chained in the market-place he stood
A man of giant frame,

Amid the gathering multitude

That shrunk to hear his name-
All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground:
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.

Vainly, but well, that chief had fought,
He was a captive now ;

Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow.

The scars his dark broad bosom wore
Showed warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before,
He could not be a slave.

The story of the African Chief, related in this ballad, may be found in the "African Repository" for April, 1825. The subject of it was a warrior of majestic stature, the brother of Yarradee, king of the Solima nation. He had been taken in battle, and was brought in chains for sale to the Rio Pongas, where he was exhibited in the market-place, his ankles still adorned with the massy rings of gold which he wore when captured. The refusal of his captor to listen to his offers of ransom drove him mad, and he died a maniac.

A price thy nation never gave

Shall yet be paid for thee;

For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,
In lands beyond the sea."

Then wept the warrior chief, and bade
To shred his locks away;

And one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.

Thick were the platted locks, and long,
And closely hidden there

Shone many a wedge of gold among
The dark and crisped hair.

"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold
Long kept for sorest need:

Take it-thou askest sums untold,
And say that I am freed.

Take it-my wife, the long, long day,
Weeps by the cocoa-tree,

And my young children leave their play,
And ask in vain for me."

"I take thy gold-but I have made
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife will wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,

And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.

His heart was broken-crazed his brain:
At once his eye grew wild;

He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whispered, and wept, and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
And once, at shut of day,

They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyena's prey.

THE BATTLE-FIELD.

Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armed hands
Encountered in the battle cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her braveGushed, warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save.

Now all is calm, and fresh, and still,
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;
Men start not at the battle-cry,

Oh, be it never heard again!

Soon rested those who fought; but thou
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.

A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year.
A wild and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot.
The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown-yet faint thou not,

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,

The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.'

Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,

When they who helped thee flee in fear,

Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here.

Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.

Of this verse an English critic thus writes: "Mr. Bryant has certainly the rare merit of having written a stanza which will bear comparison with any four lines in our recollection. It has always read to us as one of the noblest in the English language. The thought is complete, the expression perfect. A poem of a dozen such verses would be like a row of pearls, each above a king's ransom."

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

Oh FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,

A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap

With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,

Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred

With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;
They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound,
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

Thy birthright was not given by human hands:
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrows on the mountain side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,
But he shall fade into a feebler age;

Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His withered hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send

Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words

To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,

Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms