their prey! 
    Nought rests to hallow—­burst the ties
      Of life’s sublime and reverent awe;
    Before the Vice the Virtue flies,
      And Universal Crime is Law! 
    Man fears the lion’s kingly tread;
      Man fears the tiger’s fangs of terror;
    And still the dreadliest of the dread,
      Is Man himself in error! 
    No torch, though lit from Heaven, illumes
      The Blind!—­Why place it in his hand? 
    It lights not him—­it but consumes
      The City and the Land!

* * * * *

      Rejoice and laud the prospering skies! 
        The kernel bursts its husk—­behold
      From the dull clay the metal rise,
        Clear shining, as a star of gold! 
          Neck and lip, but as one beam,
          It laughs like a sun-beam. 
    And even the scutcheon, clear graven, shall tell
    That the art of a master has fashion’d the Bell!

    Come in—­come in
    My merry men—­we’ll form a ring
    The new-born labour christening;
      And “CONCORD” we will name her!—­
    To union may her heart-felt call
      In brother-love attune us all! 
    May she the destined glory win
      For which the master sought to frame her—­
    Aloft—­(all earth’s existence under,)
      In blue-pavilion’d heaven afar
    To dwell—­the Neighbour of the Thunder,
      The Borderer of the Star! 
    Be hers above a voice to raise
      Like those bright hosts in yonder sphere,
    Who, while they move, their Maker praise,
      And lead around the wreathed year! 
    To solemn and eternal things
      We dedicate her lips sublime!—­
    To fan—­as hourly on she swings
      The silent plumes of Time!—­
    No pulse—­no heart—­no feeling hers! 
      She lends the warning voice to Fate;
    And still companions, while she stirs,
      The changes of the Human State! 
    So may she teach us, as her tone
      But now so mighty, melts away—­
    That earth no life which earth has known
      From the Last Silence can delay!

    Slowly now the cords upheave her! 
      From her earth-grave soars the Bell;
    Mid the airs of Heaven we leave her
      In the Music-Realm to dwell! 
        Up—­upwards—­yet raise—­
        She has risen—­she sways. 
    Fair Bell to our city bode joy and increase,
    And oh, may thy first sound be hallow’d to—­PEACE![44]

     [43] The translation adheres to the original, in forsaking the
     rhyme in these lines and some others.

     [44] Written in the time of French war.

* * * * *

VOTIVE TABLETS.

    What the God taught me—­what, through life, my friend
      And aid hath been,
    With pious hand, and grateful, I suspend
      The temple walls within.