25The miller dreams not at what cost,
The quivering millstones hum and whirl,
Nor how for every turn are tost
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.
But Summer cleared my happier eyes
30With drops of some celestial juice,
To see how Beauty underlies,
Forevermore each form of use.
And more; methought I saw that flood,
Which now so dull and darkling steals,
35Thick, here and there, with human blood,
To turn the world's laborious wheels.
No more than doth the miller there,
Shut in our several cells, do we
Know with what waste of beauty rare
40Moves every day's machinery.
Surely the wiser time shall come
When this fine overplus of might,
No longer sullen, slow, and dumb,
Shall leap to music and to light.
45In that new childhood of the Earth
Life of itself shall dance and play,
Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth,
And labor meet delight half-way.—
THE PRESENT CRISIS
When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
5Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,
10And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart.