Is our renown'd Dominion then so small
As not to hold this new inhabitant?
Or are her means so pitiably scant
As not to yield a livelihood to all?
Or are we lesser men, foredoom'd to thrall?
Or so much better than the immigrant
That we should make our hearts as adamant
And guard against defilement with a wall?
Nay, but our land is large and rich enough
For us and ours and millions more—her need
Is working men; she cries to let them in.
Nor can we fear; our race is not the stuff
Servants are made of, but a royal seed,
And Christian, owning all mankind as kin.
THE PEOPLE'S RESPONSE TO HEROISM.
Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.
Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;
We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain
For spiritual food; our souls are dead.
So judged I till the day when news was rife
Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,
And bravely one gave up her own fair life
In saving the most helpless from the flames.
Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer
That broke with sobbing undertones from all
The multitude, and watched them drawing near,
Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall
In grief and exultation, I confest
My judgment erred,—we know and love the best.
AN ARISTOCRAT.
Her fair companions she outshone,
As this or that transcendent star
Makes all its sister orbs look wan
And dim and lustreless and far.
Her charm impressed the fleeting glance,
But chiefly the reflective mind;
A century's inheritance,
By carefull'st nurture still refined.