XII.

The Lord upholds the righteous and the just:
The Honest Man-his rule eternal Right,

His truth his treasure, and his God his trust

Treads earth with dauntless port and brow of light. No ill can crush his soul, no peril fright,

Who does to others as to Self. How blest

Each tranquil day! how angel-watch'd each night! Life sunlike passeth; death is Duty's rest;

Loved, honour'd, wept, he sleeps on his Redeemer's breast.

Calumny.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

I.

THE blessed Truth, God-born and God-beloved!

That ever hath lived, lives for evermore!

High as the heaven where loftiest wings have

roved;

Pure as the streams of Living Love that pour
Around the Throne that Seraphim adore;

Lovely beyond angelic Thought to trace;
The bride whose smile, on th' empyréan shore,
Will bless the blessed, with still growing grace!
The atmosphere of Heaven! The melody of Space!

II.

To live and love God's truth; to lift the soul
High, and still higher, to her blest abode;
To feel her fires along the spirit roll,

As if we were not kindred with the clod,
But lapp'd in light anear the throne of God;-
Oh, this were rapture, this were life indeed!
Come earth's worst sorrows, I would kiss the rod,
And smile, if Truth were with me in my need,-
Ay, smile, though bigot wrong should bid me burn or
bleed

III.

Falsehood! the shade forever execrated,

That lifts its scarr'd front 'twixt the blessed light And the lost earth! the hideous and the hated! The opposite of all things good and bright, Or strong and lasting! shedding bale and blight On BEAUTY, JOY, and HOPE! His pestilent breath Darken'd earth's primal promise; day made night; Wither'd on her young brow the bridal wreath; Loaded her winds with groans, and heap'd her vales with death!

IV.

Its vapour struggleth up from tortured hell, As, from cleft rocks, in the oracles of old, Rose fiery fumes, which breathed, the priestess fell Into strange madness, and in howlings told Secrets accurst, fiends only could unfold: To madden and mislead, thus, from the deep The fatal cloud o'er earth is raised and roll'd,— Falsehood and Death-his first-born-wildly sweep The world; and, side by side, their ripen'd harvest

reap.

V.

Falsehood is sin, and always sin; its sire
Sathan, of its dark home and birthplace King:
Ev'n seeming harmless, it still hides the fire
Of that dread home. The adder may not sting;
But who will fondle with the fearful thing?

An untruth sinless is an adder fair.

Angels from Falsehood fly, with frighted wing:
The liar's bosom is Crime's natural lair;

It lurks, perhaps, unseen, the Judge will find it

there!

VI.

Esteem not words as breath,—to be contemn'd:
For you shall be-so spake th' Almighty Son-
By words acquitted, or by words condemn'd:
The false word spoken is an evil done;

And, 'gainst your neighbour, is a war begun.
Fair Fame is Wealth,-is Power, to aid and bless;
'Tis Happiness,-'tis Love and Friendship won;

A robber he who mars or makes it less,

Life's wine pours forth, and leaves the vase an emptiness!

VII.

Good name to man is odour to the rose,

Air to the earth, the sun unto the day:
Without it, life nor hope, nor beauty, knows,
But sinks a clod,-a curse,-a castaway.
To work that woe, who dares, and dares to pray?
To poison life's pure spring; from a fair fame,
By patient virtue rear'd, to wrench the stay?
And leave him, 'mid the ruins of a name,

In icy exile lost, the solitude of shame?