The Warning Voice

YE Faithful!— ye Noble!
A day is at hand
Of trial and trouble,

And woe in the land!
O'er a once greenest path,

Now blasted and sterile,
Its dusk shadows loom—

It cometh Avith Wrath,
With Conflict and Peril,
With Judgment and Doom!

False hands shall be broken,
Dead systems shall crumble,

And the Haughty shall hear
Truths yet never spoken,

Though smouldering like flame
Through many a lost year
In the hearts of the Humble;
For, Hope will expire
As the Terror draws nigher,

And, with it, the Shame
Which so long overawed

Men's minds by its might —
And the Powers abroad

Will be Panic and Blight,
And phrenetic Sorrow —

Black Pest all the night,
And Death on the morrow!

Now, therefore, ye True,
Gird your loins up anew!
By the good you have wrought!
By all you have thought,
And suffered, and done!

By your souls! I implore you,

Be leal to your mission —
Remembering that one

Of the tico paths before you
Slopes down to Perdition!
To you have been given,

Not granaries and gold,
But the Love that lives long,

And waxes not cold;
And the Zeal that hath striven

Against Error and Wrong,
And in fragments hath riven

The chains of the Strong!
Bide now, by your sternest
Conceptions of earnest
Endurance for others,
Your weaker-souled brothers!
Your true faith and worth

Will be History soon,
And their stature stand forth

In the unsparing Noon!

You have dreamed of an era
Of Knowledge, and Truth,

And Peace — the true glory!
Was this a chimera?
Not so! — but the childhood and youth

Of our days will grow hoary,
Before such a marvel shall burst on their sight!
On you its beams glow not —
For you its flowers blow not!
You cannot rejoice in its light,

But in darkness and suffering instead,
You go down to the place of the Dead!
To this generation
The sore tribulation,
The stormy commotion,
And foam of the Popular Ocean,

The struggle of class against class;

The Dearth and the Sadness,
The Sword and the War-vest;

To the next, the Repose and the Gladness,

"The sea of clear glass,"
And the rich Golden Harvest!

Know, then, your true lot,
Ye Faithful, though few!
Understand your position,
Remember your mission,
And vacillate not,

Whatsoever ensue!
Alter not! Falter not!
Palter not now with your own living souls,
When each moment that rolls
May see Death, lay his hand
On some new victim's brow!
Oh! let not your vow
Have been written in sand!
Leave cold calculations
Of Danger and Plague,

To the slaves and the traitors
Who cannot dissemble

The dastard sensations
That now make them tremble

With phantasies vague! —
The men without ruth —
The hypocrite haters
Of Goodness and Truth,
Who at heart curse the race

Of the sun through the skies;
And would look in God's face
With a lie in their eyes!

To the last do your duty,

Still mindful of this —
That Virtue is Beauty,

And Wisdom, and Bliss;
So, howe'er, as frail men, yon have erred on

Your way along Life's thronged road,
Shall your consciences prove a sure guerdon
And tower of defence,
Until Destiny summon you hence
To the Better Abode!