THE TRAPPER'S DEFIANCE. "The adventurous spirits, who haunted the forest and plain, grew fond of their wild life and affected a great contempt for civilization."

    You boxed-up, mewed-up artificials,
    Pent in your piles of mortar and stone,
    Hugging your finely spun judicials,
    Adorning externals, externals alone,
    Vaunting in prideful ostentation
    Of the Juggernaut car, called Civilization--
    What know ye of freedom and life and God?

    Monkeys, that follow a showman's string,
    Know more of freedom and less of care,
    Cage birds, that flutter from perch to ring,
    Have less of worry and surer fare.
    Cursing the burdens, yourselves have bound,
    In a maze of wants, running round and round--
    Are ye free men, or manniken slaves?

    Costly patches, adorning your walls,
    Are all of earth's beauty ye care to know;
    But ye strut about in soul-stifled halls
    To play moth-life by a candle-glow--
    What soul has space for upward fling,
    What manhood room for shoulder-swing,
    Coffined and cramped from the vasts of God?

    The Spirit of Life, O atrophied soul,
    In trappings of ease is not confined;
    That touch from Infinite Will 'neath the Whole
    In Nature's temple, not man's, is shrined!
    From hovel-shed come out and be strong!
    Be ye free! Be redeemed from the wrong,
    Of soul-guilt, I charge you as sons of God!