The Eve Of Election

From gold to gray     Our mild sweet day     Of Indian Summer fades too soon;     But tenderly     Above the sea     Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.     In its pale fire,     The village spire     Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;     The painted walls     Whereon it falls     Transfigured stand in marble trance!     O'er fallen leaves     The west-wind grieves,     Yet comes a seed-time round again;     And morn shall see     The State sown free     With baleful tares or healthful grain.     Along the street     The shadows meet     Of Destiny, whose hands conceal     The moulds of fate     That shape the State,     And make or mar the common weal.     Around I see     The powers that be;     I stand by Empire's primal springs;     And princes meet,     In every street,     And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!     Hark! through the crowd     The laugh runs loud,     Beneath the sad, rebuking moon.     God save the land     A careless hand     May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!     No jest is this;     One cast amiss     May blast the hope of Freedom's year.     Oh, take me where     Are hearts of prayer,     And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!     Not lightly fall     Beyond recall     The written scrolls a breath can float;     The crowning fact     The kingliest act     Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!     For pearls that gem     A diadem     The diver in the deep sea dies;     The regal right     We boast to-night     Is ours through costlier sacrifice;     The blood of Vane,     His prison pain     Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod,     And hers whose faith     Drew strength from death,     And prayed her Russell up to God!     Our hearts grow cold,     We lightly hold     A right which brave men died to gain;     The stake, the cord,     The axe, the sword,     Grim nurses at its birth of pain.     The shadow rend,     And o'er us bend,     O martyrs, with your crowns and palms;     Breathe through these throngs     Your battle songs,     Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms!     Look from the sky,     Like God's great eye,     Thou solemn moon, with searching beam,     Till in the sight     Of thy pure light     Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.     Shame from our hearts     Unworthy arts,     The fraud designed, the purpose dark;     And smite away     The hands we lay     Profanely on the sacred ark.     To party claims     And private aims,     Reveal that august face of Truth,     Whereto are given     The age of heaven,     The beauty of immortal youth.     So shall our voice     Of sovereign choice     Swell the deep bass of duty done,     And strike the key     Of time to be,     When God and man shall speak as one