The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier | ||
IN WAR TIME.
TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWALL, OF MELROSE.
These lines to my old friends stood as dedication in the volume which contained a collection of pieces under the general title of In War Time. The group belonging distinctly under that title I have retained here; the other pieces in the volume are distributed among the appropriate divisions.
Vex at the land's ridiculous miserie?”
So on his Usk banks, in the blood-red dawn
Of England's civil strife, did careless Vaughan
Bemock his times. O friends of many years!
Though faith and trust are stronger than our fears,
And the signs promise peace with liberty,
Not thus we trifle with our country's tears
And sweat of agony. The future's gain
Is certain as God's truth; but, meanwhile, pain
Is bitter and tears are salt: our voices take
A sober tone; our very household songs
Are heavy with a nation's griefs and wrongs;
And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake
Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat,
The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet!
THY WILL BE DONE.
Is night,—with Thee alone is day:
From out the torrent's troubled drift,
Above the storm our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done!
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease?
Thy will be done!
Our burden up, nor ask it less,
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee,
Whose will be done!
We trace Thy picture's wise design,
And thank Thee that our age supplies
Its dark relief of sacrifice.
Thy will be done!
Thy sacrificial wine we press;
If from Thy ordeal's heated bars
Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!
Of trial hath vicarious power,
And, blest by Thee, our present pain,
Be Liberty's eternal gain,
Thy will be done!
The anthem of the destinies!
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,
Thy will be done!
A WORD FOR THE HOUR.
The firmament breaks up. In black eclipseLight after light goes out. One evil star,
Luridly glaring through the smoke of war,
As in the dream of the Apocalypse,
Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep
Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep
Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap
On one hand into fratricidal fight,
Or, on the other, yield eternal right,
Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound?
What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage-ground
Our feet are planted: let us there remain
In unrevengeful calm, no means untried
Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,
The sad spectators of a suicide!
They break the links of Union: shall we light
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain
On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
As from our shoulders falls a load of death
Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore
When keen with life to a dead horror bound?
Why take we up the accursed thing again?
Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more
Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag
With its vile reptile-blazon. Let us press
The golden cluster on our brave old flag
In closer union, and, if numbering less,
Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain.
“EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT.”
LUTHER'S HYMN.
The pangs of transformation;
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.
Its bloody rain is dropping;
The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.
East, West, South, North,
It curses the earth;
And fraud and lies
Live only in its shadow.
What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble's heel
On the old star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath
Of the men o' the South?
What whets the knife
For the Union's life?—
Hark to the answer: Slavery!
In strife unworthy freemen.
God lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demon!
O North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,
“Let slavery die!”
And union find in freedom?
The nation in his going?
We who have shared the guilt must share
The pang of his o'erthrowing!
Whate'er the loss,
Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of present pain
Who trust in God's hereafter?
Was ever yet forsaken?
What righteous cause can suffer harm
If He its part has taken?
Though wild and loud,
And dark the cloud,
Behind its folds
His hand upholds
The calm sky of to-morrow!
Above the wild war-drumming,
Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good
The evil overcoming.
Give prayer and purse
To stay the Curse
Whose wrong we share,
Whose shame we bear,
Whose end shall gladden Heaven!
Of triumphs and revenges,
While still is spared the evil thing
That severs and estranges.
But blest the ear
That yet shall hear
The jubilant bell
That rings the knell
Of Slavery forever!
And hushed the breath of sighing;
Before the joy of peace must come
The pains of purifying.
Each in his place
To bear his lot,
And, murmuring not,
Endure and wait and labor!
TO JOHN C. FRÉMONT.
On the 31st of August, 1861, General Frémont, then in charge of the Western Department, issued a proclamation which contained a clause, famous as the first announcement of emancipation: “The property,” it declared, “real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri, who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.” Mr. Lincoln regarded the proclamation as premature and countermanded it, after vainly endeavoring to persuade Frémont of his own motion to revoke it.
A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact,
And, taking counsel but of common sense,
To strike at cause as well as consequence.
Oh, never yet since Roland wound his horn
At Roncesvalles, has a blast been blown
Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own,
Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn!
It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,
To flatter treason, and avoid offence
To that Dark Power whose underlying crime
Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence.
But if thine be the fate of all who break
The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their years
Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make
Still take thou courage! God has spoken through thee,
Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free!
The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear
Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear.
Who would recall them now must first arrest
The winds that blow down from the free Northwest,
Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back
The Mississippi to its upper springs.
Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack
But the full time to harden into things.
THE WATCHERS.
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.
“Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?
Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me.”
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won.
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta s charges sped.
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.
One guards through love his ghastly throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.
By open foes, or those afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid?
I shake the dust against them all,
I leave them to their senseless brawl.”
The doom is near, the stake is great:
God knoweth if it be too late.
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare.”
“Too late!” its mournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod,
But all is possible with God!”
TO ENGLISHMEN.
Written when, in the stress of our terrible war, the English ruling class, with few exceptions, were either coldly indifferent or hostile to the party of freedom. Their attitude was illustrated by caricatures of America, among which was one of a slaveholder and cowhide, with the motto, “Haven't I a right to wallop my nigger?”
We bore it as became us,
Well knowing that the fettered slave
Left friendly lips no option save
To pity or to blame us.
Not lack of power,” you told us:
We showed our free-state records; still
You mocked, confounding good and ill,
Slave-haters and slaveholders
Of power and means we checked it;
Lo!—presto, change! its claims you urge,
Send greetings to it o'er the surge,
And comfort and protect it.
In slave-abhorring rigor,
Our Northern palms for conscience' sake:
To-day you clasp the hands that ache
With “walloping the nigger!”
In blood and tongue our brothers!
We too are heirs of Runnymede;
And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed
Are not alone our mother's.
Through centuries of story
Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still
We share with you its good and ill,
The shadow and the glory.
Nor length of years can part us:
Your right is ours to shrine and grave,
The common freehold of the brave,
The gift of saints and martyrs.
Our kindred frail and human:
We carp at faults with bitter speech,
The while, for one unshared by each,
We have a score in common.
To England's Queen, God bless her!
We praised you when your slaves went free:
Join hands with the oppressor?
The bruiser, not the bruisëd?
And must she run, despite the tears
And prayers of eighteen hundred years,
Amuck in Slavery's crusade?
Too deep for tongue to phrase on!
Tear from your flag its holy cross,
And in your van of battle toss
The pirate's skull-bone blazon!
MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS.
It is recorded that the Chians, when subjugated by Mithridates of Cappadocia, were delivered up to their own slaves, to be carried away captive to Colchis. Athenæus considers this a just punishment for their wickedness in first introducing the slave-trade into Greece. From this ancient villany of the Chians the proverb arose, “The Chian hath bought himself a master.”
How, when the Chian's cup of guilt
Was full to overflow, there came
God's justice in the sword of flame
That, red with slaughter to its hilt,
Blazed in the Cappadocian victor's hand?
But, not unheard of awful Jove,
Was answered, when the Ægean wave
The keels of Mithridates clove,
And the vines shrivelled in the breath of war.
The victor cried, “to Heaven's decree!
Pluck your last cluster from the vine,
Drain your last cup of Chian wine;
Slaves of your slaves, your doom shall be,
In Colchian mines by Phasis rolling dark.”
From the hoar sea-god's dusky caves:
The priestess rent her hair and cried,
“Woe! woe! The gods are sleepless-eyed!”
And, chained and scourged, the slaves of slaves,
The lords of Chios into exile went.
So Hellas sang her taunting song,
“The fisher in his net is caught,
The Chian hath his master bought;”
And isle from isle, with laughter long,
Took up and sped the mocking parable.
Bring their avenging cycle round,
And, more than Hellas taught of old,
Our wiser lesson shall be told,
Of slaves uprising, freedom-crowned,
To break, not wield, the scourge wet with their blood and tears.
AT PORT ROYAL.
In November, 1861, a Union force under Commodore Dupont and General Sherman captured Port Royal, and from this point as a basis of operations, the neighboring islands between Charleston and Savannah were taken possession of. The early occupation of this district, where the negro population was greatly in excess of the white, gave an opportunity which was at once seized upon, of practically emancipating the slaves and of beginning that work of civilization which was accepted as the grave responsibility of those who had labored for freedom.
The ship-lights on the sea;
The night-wind smooths with drifting sand
Our track on lone Tybee.
Our good boats forward swing;
And while we ride the land-locked tide,
Our negroes row and sing.
Of music and of song:
The gold that kindly Nature sifts
Among his sands of wrong;
And poor home-comforts please;
The quaint relief of mirth that plays
With sorrow's minor keys.
Has filled the west with light,
Where field and garner, barn and byre,
Are blazing through the night.
The rout runs mad and fast;
From hand to hand, from gate to gate
The flaming brand is passed.
Dark faces broad with smiles:
Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss
That fire yon blazing piles.
They weave in simple lays
The pathos of remembered wrong,
The hope of better days,—
The joy of uncaged birds:
Softening with Afric's mellow tongue
Their broken Saxon words.
To set de people free;
An' massa tink it day ob doom,
An' we ob jubilee.
De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves
He jus' as 'trong as den;
He say de word: we las' night slaves;
To-day, de Lord's freemen.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn;
Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
He leaf de land behind:
De Lord's breff blow him furder on,
Like corn-shuck in de wind.
We own de hoe, we own de plough,
We own de hands dat hold;
We sell de pig, we sell de cow,
But nebber chile be sold.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn;
Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
Dat some day we be free;
De norf-wind tell it to de pines,
De wild-duck to de sea;
We tink it when de church-bell ring,
We dream it in de dream;
De rice-bird mean it when he sing,
De eagle when he scream.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn:
Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
An' nebber lie de word;
So like de 'postles in de jail,
We waited for de Lord:
An' now he open ebery door,
An' trow away de key;
He tink we lub him so before,
We lub him better free.
He'll gib de rice an' corn;
Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
And with a secret pain,
And smiles that seem akin to tears,
We hear the wild refrain.
Nor yet his hope deny;
We only know that God is just,
And every wrong shall die.
Flame-lighted, ruder still:
We start to think that hapless race
Must shape our good or ill;
Oppressor with oppressed;
And, close as sin and suffering joined,
We march to Fate abreast.
Our sign of blight or bloom,
The Vala-song of Liberty,
Or death-rune of our doom!
ASTRÆA AT THE CAPITOL.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862.
Above the nation's council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave!
And saw the Christian mother sold,
And childhood with its locks of gold,
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
And, smothering down the wrath and shame
That set my Northern blood aflame,
Stood silent,—where to speak was death.
Where wasted one in slow decline
For uttering simple words of mine,
And loving freedom all too well.
Flapped menace in the morning air;
I stood a perilled stranger where
The human broker made his home.
And Law their threefold sanction gave,
And to the quarry of the slave
Went hawking with our symbol-bird.
And yet I knew that every wrong,
However old, however strong,
But waited God's avenging hour.
Somehow, some time, the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.
A free flag floats from yonder dome,
And at the nation's hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.
The message of deliverance comes,
But heralded by roll of drums
On waves of battle-troubled air!
The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!
The harp of David melting through
The demon-agonies of Saul!
Above our broken dreams and plans
God lays, with wiser hand than man's,
The corner-stones of liberty.
That freedom's blessed gospel tells
Is sweet to me as silver bells,
Rejoicing! yea, I will rejoice!
Ye dearer ones who, gone before,
Are watching from the eternal shore
The slow work by your hands begun,
Blossoms with love; the furnace heat
Grows cool beneath His blessed feet
Whose form is as the Son of God!
Are sweetened; on our ground of grief
Rise day by day in strong relief
The prophecies of better things.
Are one with God, and one with them
Who see by faith the cloudy hem
Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light!
THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862.
The charging trumpets blow;
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
No earthquake strives below.
Her ancient promise well,
Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
The battle's breath of hell.
Through harvest-happy farms,
And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.
This joy of eve and morn,
The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
And yellow locks of corn?
And hearts with hate are hot;
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.
With songs our groans of pain;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.
Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.
The good of suffering born,—
The hearts that blossom like her flowers,
And ripen like her corn.
The vision of her eyes;
And make her fields and fruited trees
Our golden prophecies!
Above this stormy din,
We too would hear the bells of cheer
Ring peace and freedom in.
HYMN, SUNG AT CHRISTMAS BY THE SCHOLARS OF ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C.
Were ever glad as we!
We're free on Carolina's shore,
We're all at home and free.
Who suffered for our sake,
To open every prison door,
And every yoke to break!
And help us sing and pray;
The hand that blessed the little child,
Upon our foreheads lay.
No more the whip we fear,
Was never half so dear.
The waters brighter smile;
Oh, never shone a day so glad
On sweet St. Helen's Isle.
To Thee in prayer we call,
Make swift the feet and straight the way
Of freedom unto all.
Come walking on the sea!
And let the mainlands hear the word
That sets the islands free!
THE PROCLAMATION.
Of Ballymena, wakened with these words:
“Arise, and flee
Out from the land of bondage, and be free!”
The angels singing of his sins forgiven,
And, wondering, sees
His prison opening to their golden keys,
Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,
And outward trod
Into the glorious liberty of God.
And, passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,
Though back and limb
Smarted with wrong, he prayed, “God pardon him!”
To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame;
And, dying, gave
The land a saint that lost him as a slave.
Waiting for God, your hour at last has come,
And freedom's song
Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong!
Of ages; but, like Ballymena's saint,
The oppressor spare,
Heap only on his head the coals of prayer.
To bless the land whereon in bitter pain
Ye toiled at first,
And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed.
ANNIVERSARY POEM.
Read before the Alumni of the Friends' Yearly Meeting School, at the Annual Meeting at Newport, R. I., 15th 6th mo., 1863.
A clouded sky:
Not yet the sword has found its sheath,
And on the sweet spring airs the breath
Of war floats by.
Nor pain from chance;
The Eternal order circles round,
And wave and storm find mete and bound
In Providence.
Of peace have trod,
Content with creed and garb and phrase:
A harder path in earlier days
Led up to God.
Are made our own;
Too long the world has smiled to hear
Our boast of full corn in the ear
By others sown;
Of long ago,
And wrap our satisfied desires
Have dropped below.
On us is laid;
Profession's quiet sleep is o'er,
And in the scale of truth once more
Our faith is weighed.
Is calling down
An answer in the whirlwind-blast,
The thunder and the shadow cast
From Heaven's dark frown.
Stands guiltless forth?
Have we been faithful as we knew,
To God and to our brother true,
To Heaven and Earth?
And count of gain,
Have seemed to us the captive's cries!
How far away the tears and sighs
Of souls in pain!
To each and all;
We hear amidst our peaceful homes
The summons of the conscript drums,
The bugle's call.
Round us in vain,
While, faithful to the Higher Cause,
We keep our fealty to the laws
Through patient pain.
We may not take:
But, calmly loyal, we can stand
And suffer with our suffering land
For conscience' sake.
Shall we alone
Be left to add our gain to gain,
When over Armageddon's plain
The trump is blown?
Safe in our Lord
The rigid lines of law shall curve
To spare us: from our heads shall swerve
Its smiting sword.
And joy with grief;
Divinest compensations come,
Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom
In sweet relief.
By word and deed,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall;
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
“Fire!”—out blazed the rifle-blast.
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.
And shook it forth with a royal will.
But spare your country's flag,” she said.
Over the face of the leader came;
To life at that woman's deed and word:
Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.
Sounded the tread of marching feet:
Over the heads of the rebel host.
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
Shone over it with a warm good-night.
And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
Round thy symbol of light and law;
On thy stars below in Frederick town!
WHAT THE BIRDS SAID.
Flew northward, singing as they flew;
They sang, “The land we leave behind
Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.”
What saw and heard ye, gazing down?”
“We saw the mortar's upturned mouth,
The sickened camp, the blazing town!
We saw your march-worn children die;
We saw your dead uncoffined lie.
And saw, from line and trench, your sons
Follow our flight with home-sick eyes
Beyond the battery's smoking guns.”
And pain,” I cried, “O wing-worn flocks?”
“We heard,” they sang, “the freedman's song,
The crash of Slavery's broken locks!
The treason-nursing mischief spurned,
As, crowding Freedom's ample gates,
The long-estranged and lost returned.
And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,
With hope in every rustling fold,
We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.
A grateful murmur clomb the air;
A whisper scarcely heard at first,
It filled the listening heavens with prayer.
Replied a voice which shall not cease,
Till, drowning all the noise of war,
It sings the blessed song of peace!”
Of chill and slowly greening spring,
Low stooping from the cloudy gray,
The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing.
The song went with them in their flight;
But lo! they left the sunset fair,
And in the evening there was light.
THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATHA.
A LEGEND OF “THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE,” A. D. 1154–1864.
Calm, terrible, and bright,
The cross in blended red and blue
Upon his mantle white!
Each on his broken chain,
Sang praise to God who raiseth
The dead to life again?
“Wear this,” the Angel said;
“Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign,—
The white, the blue, and red.”
In the strength the Lord Christ gave,
The ransom of the slave.
Before him open flew,
The drawbridge at his coming fell,
The door-bolt backward drew.
And paid his righteous tax;
And the hearts of lord and peasant
Were in his hands as wax.
His bark her anchor weighed,
Freighted with seven-score Christian souls
Whose ransom he had paid.
Her sails in tatters hung;
And on the wild waves, rudderless,
A shattered hulk she swung.
“For naught can man avail;
Oh, woe betide the ship that lacks
Her rudder and her sail!
At sea we sink or strand:
There's death upon the water,
There's death upon the land!”
“God's errands never fail!
Take thou the mantle which I wear,
And make of it a sail.”
The blue, the white, the red;
And straight before the wind off-shore
The ship of Freedom sped.
“For vain is mortal skill:
The good ship on a stormy sea
Is drifting at its will.”
“My mariners, never fear!
The Lord whose breath has filled her sail
May well our vessel steer!”
They drove for weary hours;
And lo! the third gray morning shone
On Ostia's friendly towers.
The ship of mercy knew,—
They knew far off its holy cross,
The red, the white, and blue.
Rang out in glad accord,
To welcome home to Christian soil
The ransomed of the Lord.
By bard and painter told;
And lo! the cycle rounds again,
The new is as the old!
And sails by traitors torn,
Our country on a midnight sea
Is waiting for the morn.
Behind, the pirate foe;
The clouds are black above her,
The sea is white below.
The dread of all who wrong,
She drifts in darkness and in storm,
How long, O Lord! how long?
Ye shall not suffer wreck,
While up to God the freedman's prayers
Are rising from your deck.
Which God hath blest anew,
The mantle that De Matha wore,
The red, the white, the blue?
The red of sunset's dye,
The whiteness of the moon-lit cloud,
The blue of morning's sky.
For daylight and for land;
The breath of God is in your sail,
Your rudder is His hand.
With blessings and with hopes;
The saints of old with shadowy hands
Are pulling at your ropes.
Uplift the palm and crown;
Before ye unborn ages send
Their benedictions down.
God's errands never fail!
Sweep on through storm and darkness,
The thunder and the hail!
The port ye yet shall win;
And all the bells of God shall ring
The good ship bravely in!
LAUS DEO!
On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The resolution was adopted by Congress, January 31, 1865. The ratification by the requisite number of States was announced December 18, 1865.
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Send the tidings up and down.
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town!
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud and long, that all may hear,
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time!
God's own voice is in that peal,
And this spot is holy ground.
Lord, forgive us! What are we,
That our eyes this glory see,
That our ears have heard the sound!
On the whirlwind is abroad;
In the earthquake He has spoken;
He has smitten with His thunder
The iron walls asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken!
Lift the old exulting song;
Sing with Miriam by the sea,
He has cast the mighty down;
Horse and rider sink and drown;
“He hath triumphed gloriously!”
In our agony of prayer,
When was ever His right hand
Over any time or land
Stretched as now beneath the sun?
Ancient myth and song and tale,
In this wonder of our days,
When the cruel rod of war
Blossoms white with righteous law,
And the wrath of man is praise!
All within and all about
Shall a fresher life begin;
Freer breathe the universe
As it rolls its heavy curse
On the dead and buried sin!
In the circuit of the sun
Shall the sound thereof go forth.
It shall bid the sad rejoice,
It shall give the dumb a voice,
It shall belt with joy the earth!
Bells of joy! On morning's wing
Send the song of praise abroad!
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that He reigns,
Who alone is Lord and God!
HYMN
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION AT NEW-BURYPORT.
The word that burned within to speak,
Not unto us this day belong
The triumph and exultant song.
The burden of unwelcome truth,
And left us, weak and frail and few,
The censor's painful work to do.
The air we breathed was hot with blame;
For not with gauged and softened tone
We made the bondman's cause our own.
The private hate, the public scorn;
Yet held through all the paths we trod
Our faith in man and trust in God.
The coming of the sword we saw;
We heard the nearing steps of doom,
We saw the shade of things to come.
Who from a mother's wrong appeal,
We cast our country's horoscope.
We marked the lurid sign of strife,
And, poisoning and imbittering all,
We saw the star of Wormwood fall.
Our hate of all that wrought her shame,
And if, thereby, with tongue and pen
We erred,—we were but mortal men.
The blood-red dawn of Freedom's day:
We prayed for love to loose the chain;
'T is shorn by battle's axe in twain!
Has mined and heaved the hostile towers;
Not by our hands is turned the key
That sets the sighing captives free.
Is piled and parted for the slave;
A darker cloud moves on in light;
A fiercer fire is guide by night!
In Thy own way Thy work is done!
Our poor gifts at Thy feet we cast,
To whom be glory, first and last!
The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier | ||