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+Project Gutenberg EBook, Poems in Wartime, by Whittier
+Volume III., The Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery, Labor and Reform
+#23 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier
+
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+
+Title: Poems in Wartime
+       From Volume III., The Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery
+       Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform
+
+Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
+
+Release Date: December 2005  [EBook #9578]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
+
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS  WARTIME ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+                           ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS
+
+                       SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                        JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+
+IN WAR TIME.
+     TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWALL
+     THY WILL BE DONE
+     A WORD FOR THE HOUR
+     "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT"
+     TO JOHN C. FREMONT
+     THE WATCHERS
+     TO ENGLISHMEN
+     MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS
+     AT PORT ROYAL
+     ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL
+     THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862
+     OF ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C.
+     THE PROCLAMATION
+     ANNIVERSARY POEM
+     BARBARA FRIETCHIE
+     HAT THE BIRDS SAID
+     THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATRA
+     LADS DEO!
+     HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION
+          AT NEWBURYPORT
+
+
+
+
+                               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.
+
+OLOR ISCANUS queries: "Why should we
+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!
+1863
+
+
+
+
+THY WILL BE DONE.
+
+WE see not, know not; all our way
+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!
+
+The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,
+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!
+
+We take with solemn thankfulness
+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!
+
+Though dim as yet in tint and line,
+We trace Thy picture's wise design,
+And thank Thee that our age supplies
+Its dark relief of sacrifice.
+Thy will be done!
+
+And if, in our unworthiness,
+Thy sacrificial wine we press;
+If from Thy ordeal's heated bars
+Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
+Thy will be done!
+
+If, for the age to come, this hour
+Of trial hath vicarious power,
+And, blest by Thee, our present pain,
+Be Liberty's eternal gain,
+Thy will be done!
+
+Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
+The anthem of the destinies!
+The minor of Thy loftier strain,
+Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,
+Thy will be done!
+1861.
+
+
+
+
+A WORD FOR THE HOUR.
+
+THE firmament breaks up. In black eclipse
+Light 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?
+Draw we not even now a freer breath,
+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.
+16th First mo., 1861.
+
+
+
+
+"EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."
+
+LUTHER'S HYMN.
+WE wait beneath the furnace-blast
+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.
+
+The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared
+Its bloody rain is dropping;
+The poison plant the fathers spared
+All else is overtopping.
+East, West, South, North,
+It curses the earth;
+All justice dies,
+And fraud and lies
+Live only in its shadow.
+
+What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
+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!
+
+Then waste no blows on lesser foes
+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?
+
+What though the cast-out spirit tear
+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?
+
+For who that leans on His right arm
+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 maddening cry for blood,
+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!
+
+In vain the bells of war shall ring
+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!
+
+Then let the selfish lip be dumb,
+And hushed the breath of sighing;
+Before the joy of peace must come
+The pains of purifying.
+God give us grace
+Each in his place
+To bear his lot,
+And, murmuring not,
+Endure and wait and labor!
+1861.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOHN C. FREMONT.
+On the 31st of August, 1861, General Fremont, 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 Fremont of his own motion to revoke it.
+
+THY error, Fremont, simply was to act
+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
+A lane for freedom through the level spears,
+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.
+1861.
+
+
+
+
+THE WATCHERS.
+
+BESIDE a stricken field I stood;
+On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
+Hung heavily the dew of blood.
+
+Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
+But all the air was quick with pain
+And gusty sighs and tearful rain.
+
+Two angels, each with drooping head
+And folded wings and noiseless tread,
+Watched by that valley of the dead.
+
+The one, with forehead saintly bland
+And lips of blessing, not command,
+Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.
+
+The other's brows were scarred and knit,
+His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
+His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.
+
+"How long!"--I knew the voice of Peace,--
+"Is there no respite? no release?
+When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?
+
+"O Lord, how long!! One human soul
+Is more than any parchment scroll,
+Or any flag thy winds unroll.
+
+"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?
+How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
+Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?
+
+"O brother! if thine eye can see,
+Tell how and when the end shall be,
+What hope remains for thee and me."
+
+Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun
+No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
+When human rights are staked and won.
+
+"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
+I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
+I walked with Sidney to the block.
+
+"The moor of Marston felt my tread,
+Through Jersey snows the march I led,
+My voice Magenta's charges sped.
+
+"But now, through weary day and night,
+I watch a vague and aimless fight
+For leave to strike one blow aright.
+
+"On either side my foe they own
+One guards through love his ghastly throne,
+And one through fear to reverence grown.
+
+"Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,
+By open foes, or those afraid
+To speed thy coming through my aid?
+
+"Why watch to see who win or fall?
+I shake the dust against them all,
+I leave them to their senseless brawl."
+
+"Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait;
+The doom is near, the stake is great
+God knoweth if it be too late.
+
+"Still wait and watch; the way prepare
+Where I with folded wings of prayer
+May follow, weaponless and bare."
+
+"Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,
+"Too late!" its mournful echo sighed,
+In low lament the answer died.
+
+A rustling as of wings in flight,
+An upward gleam of lessening white,
+So passed the vision, sound and sight.
+
+But round me, like a silver bell
+Rung down the listening sky to tell
+Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
+
+"Still hope and trust," it sang; "the rod
+Must fall, the wine-press must be trod,
+But all is possible with God!"
+1862.
+
+
+
+
+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?"
+
+You flung your taunt across the wave
+We bore it as became us,
+Well knowing that the fettered slave
+Left friendly lips no option save
+To pity or to blame us.
+
+You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will,
+Not lack of power," you told us
+We showed our free-state records; still
+You mocked, confounding good and ill,
+Slave-haters and slaveholders.
+
+We struck at Slavery; to the verge
+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.
+
+But yesterday you scarce could shake,
+In slave-abhorring rigor,
+Our Northern palms for conscience' sake
+To-day you clasp the hands that ache
+With "walloping the nigger!"
+
+O Englishmen!--in hope and creed,
+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.
+
+"Thicker than water," in one rill
+Through centuries of story
+Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still
+We share with you its good and ill,
+The shadow and the glory.
+
+Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave
+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 very sins and follies teach
+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.
+
+We bowed the heart, if not the knee,
+To England's Queen, God bless her
+We praised you when your slaves went free
+We seek to unchain ours. Will ye
+Join hands with the oppressor?
+
+And is it Christian England cheers
+The bruiser, not the bruised?
+And must she run, despite the tears
+And prayers of eighteen hundred years,
+Amuck in Slavery's crusade?
+
+Oh, black disgrace! Oh, shame and loss
+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!
+1862.
+
+
+
+
+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. Athenxus 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."
+
+KNOW'ST thou, O slave-cursed land
+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?
+
+The heavens are still and far;
+But, not unheard of awful Jove,
+The sighing of the island slave
+Was answered, when the AEgean wave
+The keels of Mithridates clove,
+And the vines shrivelled in the breath of war.
+
+"Robbers of Chios! hark,"
+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."
+
+Then rose the long lament
+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.
+
+"The gods at last pay well,"
+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.
+
+Once more the slow, dumb years
+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.
+1868.
+
+
+
+
+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 tent-lights glimmer on the land,
+The ship-lights on the sea;
+The night-wind smooths with drifting sand
+Our track on lone Tybee.
+
+At last our grating keels outslide,
+Our good boats forward swing;
+And while we ride the land-locked tide,
+Our negroes row and sing.
+
+For dear the bondman holds his gifts
+Of music and of song
+The gold that kindly Nature sifts
+Among his sands of wrong:
+
+The power to make his toiling days
+And poor home-comforts please;
+The quaint relief of mirth that plays
+With sorrow's minor keys.
+
+Another glow than sunset's fire
+Has filled the west with light,
+Where field and garner, barn and byre,
+Are blazing through the night.
+
+The land is wild with fear and hate,
+The rout runs mad and fast;
+From hand to hand, from gate to gate
+The flaming brand is passed.
+
+The lurid glow falls strong across
+Dark faces broad with smiles
+Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss
+That fire yon blazing piles.
+
+With oar-strokes timing to their song,
+They weave in simple lays
+The pathos of remembered wrong,
+The hope of better days,--
+
+The triumph-note that Miriam sung,
+The joy of uncaged birds
+Softening with Afric's mellow tongue
+Their broken Saxon words.
+
+
+SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN.
+
+Oh, praise an' tanks! De Lord he come
+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!
+
+Ole massa on he trabbels gone;
+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!
+
+We pray de Lord: he gib us signs
+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 be 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!
+
+We know de promise nebber fail,
+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 hub him better free.
+De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
+He'll gib de rice an' corn;
+Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
+De driver blow his horn!
+
+So sing our dusky gondoliers;
+And with a secret pain,
+And smiles that seem akin to tears,
+We hear the wild refrain.
+
+We dare not share the negro's trust,
+Nor yet his hope deny;
+We only know that God is just,
+And every wrong shall die.
+
+Rude seems the song; each swarthy face,
+Flame-lighted, ruder still
+We start to think that hapless race
+Must shape our good or ill;
+
+That laws of changeless justice bind
+Oppressor with oppressed;
+And, close as sin and suffering joined,
+We march to Fate abreast.
+
+Sing on, poor hearts! your chant shall be
+Our sign of blight or bloom,
+The Vala-song of Liberty,
+Or death-rune of our doom!
+1862.
+
+
+
+
+ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL.
+
+ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862.
+
+WHEN first I saw our banner wave
+Above the nation's council-hall,
+I heard beneath its marble wall
+The clanking fetters of the slave!
+
+In the foul market-place I stood,
+And saw the Christian mother sold,
+And childhood with its locks of gold,
+Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
+
+I shut my eyes, I held my breath,
+And, smothering down the wrath and shame
+That set my Northern blood aflame,
+Stood silent,--where to speak was death.
+
+Beside me gloomed the prison-cell
+Where wasted one in slow decline
+For uttering simple words of mine,
+And loving freedom all too well.
+
+The flag that floated from the dome
+Flapped menace in the morning air;
+I stood a perilled stranger where
+The human broker made his home.
+
+For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword
+And Law their threefold sanction gave,
+And to the quarry of the slave
+Went hawking with our symbol-bird.
+
+On the oppressor's side was power;
+And yet I knew that every wrong,
+However old, however strong,
+But waited God's avenging hour.
+
+I knew that truth would crush the lie,
+Somehow, some time, the end would be;
+Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
+The triumph with my mortal eye.
+
+But now I see it! In the sun
+A free flag floats from yonder dome,
+And at the nation's hearth and home
+The justice long delayed is done.
+
+Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer,
+The message of deliverance comes,
+But heralded by roll of drums
+On waves of battle-troubled air!
+
+Midst sounds that madden and appall,
+The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!
+The harp of David melting through
+The demon-agonies of Saul!
+
+Not as we hoped; but what are we?
+Above our broken dreams and plans
+God lays, with wiser hand than man's,
+The corner-stones of liberty.
+
+I cavil not with Him: the voice
+That freedom's blessed gospel tells
+Is sweet to me as silver bells,
+Rejoicing! yea, I will rejoice!
+
+Dear friends still toiling in the sun;
+Ye dearer ones who, gone before,
+Are watching from the eternal shore
+The slow work by your hands begun,
+
+Rejoice with me! The chastening rod
+Blossoms with love; the furnace heat
+Grows cool beneath His blessed feet
+Whose form is as the Son of God!
+
+Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs
+Are sweetened; on our ground of grief
+Rise day by day in strong relief
+The prophecies of better things.
+
+Rejoice in hope! The day and night
+Are one with God, and one with them
+Who see by faith the cloudy hem
+Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light
+1862.
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862.
+
+THE flags of war like storm-birds fly,
+The charging trumpets blow;
+Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
+No earthquake strives below.
+
+And, calm and patient, Nature keeps
+Her ancient promise well,
+Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
+The battle's breath of hell.
+
+And still she walks in golden hours
+Through harvest-happy farms,
+And still she wears her fruits and flowers
+Like jewels on her arms.
+
+What mean the gladness of the plain,
+This joy of eve and morn,
+The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
+And yellow locks of corn?
+
+Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
+And hearts with hate are hot;
+But even-paced come round the years,
+And Nature changes not.
+
+She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
+With songs our groans of pain;
+She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
+The war-field's crimson stain.
+
+Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear
+Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm;
+Too near to God for doubt or fear,
+She shares the eternal calm.
+
+She knows the seed lies safe below
+The fires that blast and burn;
+For all the tears of blood we sow
+She waits the rich return.
+
+She sees with clearer eve than ours
+The good of suffering born,--
+The hearts that blossom like her flowers,
+And ripen like her corn.
+
+Oh, give to us, in times like these,
+The vision of her eyes;
+And make her fields and fruited trees
+Our golden prophecies
+
+Oh, give to us her finer ear
+Above this stormy din,
+We too would hear the bells of cheer
+Ring peace and freedom in.
+1862.
+
+
+
+
+HYMN,
+
+SUNG AT CHRISTMAS BY THE SCHOLARS OF ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C.
+
+OH, none in all the world before
+Were ever glad as we!
+We're free on Carolina's shore,
+We're all at home and free.
+
+Thou Friend and Helper of the poor,
+Who suffered for our sake,
+To open every prison door,
+And every yoke to break!
+
+Bend low Thy pitying face and mild,
+And help us sing and pray;
+The hand that blessed the little child,
+Upon our foreheads lay.
+
+We hear no more the driver's horn,
+No more the whip we fear,
+This holy day that saw Thee born
+Was never half so dear.
+
+The very oaks are greener clad,
+The waters brighter smile;
+Oh, never shone a day so glad
+On sweet St. Helen's Isle.
+
+We praise Thee in our songs to-day,
+To Thee in prayer we call,
+Make swift the feet and straight the way
+Of freedom unto all.
+
+Come once again, O blessed Lord!
+Come walking on the sea!
+And let the mainlands hear the word
+That sets the islands free!
+1863.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROCLAMATION.
+
+President Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation was issued
+January 1, 1863.
+
+SAINT PATRICK, slave to Milcho of the herds
+Of Ballymena, wakened with these words
+"Arise, and flee
+Out from the land of bondage, and be free!"
+
+Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven
+The angels singing of his sins forgiven,
+And, wondering, sees
+His prison opening to their golden keys,
+
+He rose a man who laid him down a slave,
+Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,
+And outward trod
+Into the glorious liberty of God.
+
+He cast the symbols of his shame away;
+And, passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,
+Though back and limb
+Smarted with wrong, he prayed, "God pardon
+him!"
+
+So went he forth; but in God's time he came
+To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame;
+And, dying, gave
+The land a saint that lost him as a slave.
+
+O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb
+Waiting for God, your hour at last has come,
+And freedom's song
+Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong!
+
+Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraint
+Of ages; but, like Ballymena's saint,
+The oppressor spare,
+Heap only on his head the coals of prayer.
+
+Go forth, like him! like him return again,
+To bless the land whereon in bitter pain
+Ye toiled at first,
+And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed.
+1863.
+
+
+
+
+ANNIVERSARY POEM.
+
+Read before the Alumni of the Friends' Yearly Meeting School, at the
+Annual Meeting at Newport, R. I., 15th 6th mo., 1863.
+
+ONCE more, dear friends, you meet beneath
+A clouded sky
+Not yet the sword has found its sheath,
+And on the sweet spring airs the breath
+Of war floats by.
+
+Yet trouble springs not from the ground,
+Nor pain from chance;
+The Eternal order circles round,
+And wave and storm find mete and bound
+In Providence.
+
+Full long our feet the flowery ways
+Of peace have trod,
+Content with creed and garb and phrase:
+A harder path in earlier days
+Led up to God.
+
+Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear,
+Are made our own;
+Too long the world has smiled to hear
+Our boast of full corn in the ear
+By others sown;
+
+To see us stir the martyr fires
+Of long ago,
+And wrap our satisfied desires
+In the singed mantles that our sires
+Have dropped below.
+
+But now the cross our worthies bore
+On us is laid;
+Profession's quiet sleep is o'er,
+And in the scale of truth once more
+Our faith is weighed.
+
+The cry of innocent blood at last
+Is calling down
+An answer in the whirlwind-blast,
+The thunder and the shadow cast
+From Heaven's dark frown.
+
+The land is red with judgments. Who
+Stands guiltless forth?
+Have we been faithful as we knew,
+To God and to our brother true,
+To Heaven and Earth.
+
+How faint, through din of merchandise
+And count of gain,
+Have seemed to us the captive's cries!
+How far away the tears and sighs
+Of souls in pain!
+
+This day the fearful reckoning comes
+To each and all;
+We hear amidst our peaceful homes
+The summons of the conscript drums,
+The bugle's call.
+
+Our path is plain; the war-net draws
+Round us in vain,
+While, faithful to the Higher Cause,
+We keep our fealty to the laws
+Through patient pain.
+
+The levelled gun, the battle-brand,
+We may not take
+But, calmly loyal, we can stand
+And suffer with our suffering land
+For conscience' sake.
+
+Why ask for ease where all is pain?
+Shall we alone
+Be left to add our gain to gain,
+When over Armageddon's plain
+The trump is blown?
+
+To suffer well is well to serve;
+Safe in our Lord
+The rigid lines of law shall curve
+To spare us; from our heads shall swerve
+Its smiting sword.
+
+And light is mingled with the gloom,
+And joy with grief;
+Divinest compensations come,
+Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom
+In sweet relief.
+
+Thanks for our privilege to bless,
+By word and deed,
+The widow in her keen distress,
+The childless and the fatherless,
+The hearts that bleed!
+
+For fields of duty, opening wide,
+Where all our powers
+Are tasked the eager steps to guide
+Of millions on a path untried
+The slave is ours!
+
+Ours by traditions dear and old,
+Which make the race
+Our wards to cherish and uphold,
+And cast their freedom in the mould
+Of Christian grace.
+
+And we may tread the sick-bed floors
+Where strong men pine,
+And, down the groaning corridors,
+Pour freely from our liberal stores
+The oil and wine.
+
+Who murmurs that in these dark days
+His lot is cast?
+God's hand within the shadow lays
+The stones whereon His gates of praise
+Shall rise at last.
+
+Turn and o'erturn, O outstretched Hand
+Nor stint, nor stay;
+The years have never dropped their sand
+On mortal issue vast and grand
+As ours to-day.
+
+Already, on the sable ground
+Of man's despair
+Is Freedom's glorious picture found,
+With all its dusky hands unbound
+Upraised in prayer.
+
+Oh, small shall seem all sacrifice
+And pain and loss,
+When God shall wipe the weeping eyes,
+For suffering give the victor's prize,
+The crown for cross.
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA FRIETCHIE.
+
+This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the
+incident as I had it from respectable and trustworthy sources. It has
+since been the subject of a good deal of conflicting testimony, and the
+story was probably incorrect in some of its details. It is admitted by
+all that Barbara Frietchie was no myth, but a worthy and highly esteemed
+gentlewoman, intensely loyal and a hater of the Slavery Rebellion,
+holding her Union flag sacred and keeping it with her Bible; that when
+the Confederates halted before her house, and entered her dooryard, she
+denounced them in vigorous language, shook her cane in their faces, and
+drove them out; and when General Burnside's troops followed close upon
+Jackson's, she waved her flag and cheered them. It is stated that May
+Qnantrell, a brave and loyal lady in another part of the city, did wave
+her flag in sight of the Confederates. It is possible that there has
+been a blending of the two incidents.
+
+Up from the meadows rich with corn,
+Clear in the cool September morn.
+
+The clustered spires of Frederick stand
+Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
+
+Round about them orchards sweep,
+Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
+
+Fair as the garden of the Lord
+To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
+
+On that pleasant morn of the early fall
+When Lee marched over the mountain-wall;
+
+Over the mountains winding down,
+Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
+
+Forty flags with their silver stars,
+Forty flags with their crimson bars,
+
+Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
+Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
+
+Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
+Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
+
+Bravest of all in Frederick town,
+She took up the flag the men hauled down;
+
+In her attic window the staff she set,
+To show that one heart was loyal yet.
+
+Up the street came the rebel tread,
+Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
+
+Under his slouched hat left and right
+He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
+
+"Halt!"--the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
+"Fire!"--out blazed the rifle-blast.
+
+It shivered the window, pane and sash;
+It rent the banner with seam and gash.
+
+Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
+Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.
+
+She leaned far out on the window-sill,
+And shook it forth with a royal will.
+
+"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
+But spare your country's flag," she said.
+
+A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
+Over the face of the leader came;
+
+The nobler nature within him stirred
+To life at that woman's deed and word.
+
+"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
+Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.
+
+All day long through Frederick street
+Sounded the tread of marching feet.
+
+All day long that free flag tost
+Over the heads of the rebel host.
+
+Ever its torn folds rose and fell
+On the loyal winds that loved it well;
+
+And through the hill-gaps sunset light
+Shone over it with a warm good-night.
+
+Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
+And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
+
+Honor to her! and let a tear
+Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
+
+Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
+Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
+
+Peace and order and beauty draw
+Round thy symbol of light and law;
+
+And ever the stars above look down
+On thy stars below in Frederick town!
+1863.
+
+
+
+WHAT THE BIRDS SAID.
+
+THE birds against the April wind
+Flew northward, singing as they flew;
+They sang, "The land we leave behind
+Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew."
+
+"O wild-birds, flying from the South,
+What saw and heard ye, gazing down?"
+"We saw the mortar's upturned mouth,
+The sickened camp, the blazing town!
+
+"Beneath the bivouac's starry lamps,
+We saw your march-worn children die;
+In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps,
+We saw your dead uncoffined lie.
+
+"We heard the starving prisoner's sighs,
+And saw, from line and trench, your sons
+Follow our flight with home-sick eyes
+Beyond the battery's smoking guns."
+
+"And heard and saw ye only wrong
+And pain," I cried, "O wing-worn flocks?"
+"We heard," they sang, "the freedman's song,
+The crash of Slavery's broken locks!
+
+"We saw from new, uprising States
+The treason-nursing mischief spurned,
+As, crowding Freedom's ample gates,
+The long estranged and lost returned.
+
+"O'er dusky faces, seamed and old,
+And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,
+With hope in every rustling fold,
+We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.
+
+"And struggling up through sounds accursed,
+A grateful murmur clomb the air;
+A whisper scarcely heard at first,
+It filled the listening heavens with prayer.
+
+"And sweet and far, as from a star,
+Replied a voice which shall not cease,
+Till, drowning all the noise of war,
+It sings the blessed song of peace!"
+
+So to me, in a doubtful day
+Of chill and slowly greening spring,
+Low stooping from the cloudy gray,
+The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing.
+
+They vanished in the misty air,
+The song went with them in their flight;
+But lo! they left the sunset fair,
+And in the evening there was light.
+April, 1864.
+
+
+
+
+THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATHA.
+
+A LEGEND OF "THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE," A. D. 1154-1864.
+
+A STRONG and mighty Angel,
+Calm, terrible, and bright,
+The cross in blended red and blue
+Upon his mantle white.
+
+Two captives by him kneeling,
+Each on his broken chain,
+Sang praise to God who raiseth
+The dead to life again!
+
+Dropping his cross-wrought mantle,
+"Wear this," the Angel said;
+"Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign,
+The white, the blue, and red."
+
+Then rose up John de Matha
+In the strength the Lord Christ gave,
+And begged through all the land of France
+The ransom of the slave.
+
+The gates of tower and castle
+Before him open flew,
+The drawbridge at his coming fell,
+The door-bolt backward drew.
+
+For all men owned his errand,
+And paid his righteous tax;
+And the hearts of lord and peasant
+Were in his hands as wax.
+
+At last, outbound from Tunis,
+His bark her anchor weighed,
+Freighted with seven-score Christian souls
+Whose ransom he had paid.
+
+But, torn by Paynim hatred,
+Her sails in tatters hung;
+And on the wild waves, rudderless,
+A shattered hulk she swung.
+
+"God save us!" cried the captain,
+"For naught can man avail;
+Oh, woe betide the ship that lacks
+Her rudder and her sail!
+
+"Behind us are the Moormen;
+At sea we sink or strand
+There's death upon the water,
+There's death upon the land!"
+
+Then up spake John de Matha
+"God's errands never fail!
+Take thou the mantle which I wear,
+And make of it a sail."
+
+They raised the cross-wrought mantle,
+The blue, the white, the red;
+And straight before the wind off-shore
+The ship of Freedom sped.
+
+"God help us!" cried the seamen,
+"For vain is mortal skill
+The good ship on a stormy sea
+Is drifting at its will."
+
+Then up spake John de Matha
+"My mariners, never fear
+The Lord whose breath has filled her sail
+May well our vessel steer!"
+
+So on through storm and darkness
+They drove for weary hours;
+And lo! the third gray morning shone
+On Ostia's friendly towers.
+
+And on the walls the watchers
+The ship of mercy knew,
+They knew far off its holy cross,
+The red, the white, and blue.
+
+And the bells in all the steeples
+Rang out in glad accord,
+To welcome home to Christian soil
+The ransomed of the Lord.
+
+So runs the ancient legend
+By bard and painter told;
+And lo! the cycle rounds again,
+The new is as the old!
+
+With rudder foully broken,
+And sails by traitors torn,
+Our country on a midnight sea
+Is waiting for the morn.
+
+Before her, nameless terror;
+Behind, the pirate foe;
+The clouds are black above her,
+The sea is white below.
+
+The hope of all who suffer,
+The dread of all who wrong,
+She drifts in darkness and in storm,
+How long, O Lord I how long?
+
+But courage, O my mariners
+Ye shall not suffer wreck,
+While up to God the freedman's prayers
+Are rising from your deck.
+
+Is not your sail the banner
+Which God hath blest anew,
+The mantle that De Matha wore,
+The red, the white, the blue?
+
+Its hues are all of heaven,
+The red of sunset's dye,
+The whiteness of the moon-lit cloud,
+The blue of morning's sky.
+
+Wait cheerily, then, O mariners,
+For daylight and for land;
+The breath of God is in your sail,
+Your rudder is His hand.
+
+Sail on, sail on, deep-freighted
+With blessings and with hopes;
+The saints of old with shadowy hands
+Are pulling at your ropes.
+
+Behind ye holy martyrs
+Uplift the palm and crown;
+Before ye unborn ages send
+Their benedictions down.
+
+Take heart from John de Matha!--
+God's errands never fail!
+Sweep on through storm and darkness,
+The thunder and the hail!
+
+Sail on! The morning cometh,
+The port ye yet shall win;
+And all the bells of God shall ring
+The good ship bravely in!
+1865.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+IT is done!
+Clang of bell and roar of gun
+Send the tidings up and down.
+How the belfries rock and reel!
+How the great guns, peal on peal,
+Fling the joy from town to town!
+
+Ring, O bells!
+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!
+
+Let us kneel
+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!
+
+For the Lord
+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.
+
+Loud and long
+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!"
+
+Did we dare,
+In our agony of prayer,
+Ask for more than He has done?
+When was ever His right hand
+Over any time or land
+Stretched as now beneath the sun?
+
+How they pale,
+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!
+
+Blotted out
+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!
+
+It is done!
+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!
+
+Ring and swing,
+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!
+1865.
+
+
+
+
+HYMN
+FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION AT NEWBURYPORT.
+
+NOT unto us who did but seek
+The word that burned within to speak,
+Not unto us this day belong
+The triumph and exultant song.
+
+Upon us fell in early youth
+The burden of unwelcome truth,
+And left us, weak and frail and few,
+The censor's painful work to do.
+
+Thenceforth our life a fight became,
+The air we breathed was hot with blame;
+For not with gauged and softened tone
+We made the bondman's cause our own.
+
+We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn,
+The private hate, the public scorn;
+Yet held through all the paths we trod
+Our faith in man and trust in God.
+
+We prayed and hoped; but still, with awe,
+The coming of the sword we saw;
+We heard the nearing steps of doom,
+We saw the shade of things to come.
+
+In grief which they alone can feel
+Who from a mother's wrong appeal,
+With blended lines of fear and hope
+We cast our country's horoscope.
+
+For still within her house of life
+We marked the lurid sign of strife,
+And, poisoning and imbittering all,
+We saw the star of Wormwood fall.
+
+Deep as our love for her became
+Our hate of all that wrought her shame,
+And if, thereby, with tongue and pen
+We erred,--we were but mortal men.
+
+We hoped for peace; our eyes survey
+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!
+
+Nor skill nor strength nor zeal of ours
+Has mined and heaved the hostile towers;
+Not by our hands is turned the key
+That sets the sighing captives free.
+
+A redder sea than Egypt's wave
+Is piled and parted for the slave;
+A darker cloud moves on in light;
+A fiercer fire is guide by night.
+
+The praise, O Lord! is Thine alone,
+In Thy own way Thy work is done!
+Our poor gifts at Thy feet we cast,
+To whom be glory, first and last!
+1865.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AFTER THE WAR.
+
+THE PEACE AUTUMN.
+
+Written for the Fssex County Agricultural Festival, 1865.
+
+THANK God for rest, where none molest,
+And none can make afraid;
+For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest
+Beneath the homestead shade!
+
+Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,
+The negro's broken chains,
+And beat them at the blacksmith's forge
+To ploughshares for our plains.
+
+Alike henceforth our hills of snow,
+And vales where cotton flowers;
+All streams that flow, all winds that blow,
+Are Freedom's motive-powers.
+
+Henceforth to Labor's chivalry
+Be knightly honors paid;
+For nobler than the sword's shall be
+The sickle's accolade.
+
+Build up an altar to the Lord,
+O grateful hearts of ours
+And shape it of the greenest sward
+That ever drank the showers.
+
+Lay all the bloom of gardens there,
+And there the orchard fruits;
+Bring golden grain from sun and air,
+From earth her goodly roots.
+
+There let our banners droop and flow,
+The stars uprise and fall;
+Our roll of martyrs, sad and slow,
+Let sighing breezes call.
+
+Their names let hands of horn and tan
+And rough-shod feet applaud,
+Who died to make the slave a man,
+And link with toil reward.
+
+There let the common heart keep time
+To such an anthem sung
+As never swelled on poet's rhyme,
+Or thrilled on singer's tongue.
+
+Song of our burden and relief,
+Of peace and long annoy;
+The passion of our mighty grief
+And our exceeding joy!
+
+A song of praise to Him who filled
+The harvests sown in tears,
+And gave each field a double yield
+To feed our battle-years.
+
+A song of faith that trusts the end
+To match the good begun,
+Nor doubts the power of Love to blend
+The hearts of men as one!
+
+
+
+
+TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS.
+
+The thirty-ninth congress was that which met in 1565 after the close of
+the war, when it was charged with the great question of reconstruction;
+the uppermost subject in men's minds was the standing of those who had
+recently been in arms against the Union and their relations to the
+freedmen.
+
+O PEOPLE-CHOSEN! are ye not
+Likewise the chosen of the Lord,
+To do His will and speak His word?
+
+From the loud thunder-storm of war
+Not man alone hath called ye forth,
+But He, the God of all the earth!
+
+The torch of vengeance in your hands
+He quenches; unto Him belongs
+The solemn recompense of wrongs.
+
+Enough of blood the land has seen,
+And not by cell or gallows-stair
+Shall ye the way of God prepare.
+
+Say to the pardon-seekers: Keep
+Your manhood, bend no suppliant knees,
+Nor palter with unworthy pleas.
+
+Above your voices sounds the wail
+Of starving men; we shut in vain *
+Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain. **
+
+What words can drown that bitter cry?
+What tears wash out the stain of death?
+What oaths confirm your broken faith?
+
+From you alone the guaranty
+Of union, freedom, peace, we claim;
+We urge no conqueror's terms of shame.
+
+Alas! no victor's pride is ours;
+We bend above our triumphs won
+Like David o'er his rebel son.
+
+Be men, not beggars. Cancel all
+By one brave, generous action; trust
+Your better instincts, and be just.
+
+Make all men peers before the law,
+Take hands from off the negro's throat,
+Give black and white an equal vote.
+
+Keep all your forfeit lives and lands,
+But give the common law's redress
+To labor's utter nakedness.
+
+Revive the old heroic will;
+Be in the right as brave and strong
+As ye have proved yourselves in wrong.
+
+Defeat shall then be victory,
+Your loss the wealth of full amends,
+And hate be love, and foes be friends.
+
+Then buried be the dreadful past,
+Its common slain be mourned, and let
+All memories soften to regret.
+
+Then shall the Union's mother-heart
+Her lost and wandering ones recall,
+Forgiving and restoring all,--
+
+And Freedom break her marble trance
+Above the Capitolian dome,
+Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome home
+November, 1865.
+
+*  Andersonville prison.
+** The massacre of Negro troops at Fort Pillow.
+
+
+THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG.
+
+IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame,
+So terrible alive,
+Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became
+The wandering wild bees' hive;
+And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore
+Those jaws of death apart,
+In after time drew forth their honeyed store
+To strengthen his strong heart.
+
+Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept
+To wake beneath our sky;
+Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept
+Back to its lair to die,
+Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds,
+A stained and shattered drum
+Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds,
+The wild bees go and come.
+
+Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel,
+They wander wide and far,
+Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell,
+Through vales once choked with war.
+The low reveille of their battle-drum
+Disturbs no morning prayer;
+With deeper peace in summer noons their hum
+Fills all the drowsy air.
+
+And Samson's riddle is our own to-day,
+Of sweetness from the strong,
+Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away
+From the rent jaws of wrong.
+From Treason's death we draw a purer life,
+As, from the beast he slew,
+A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife
+The old-time athlete drew!
+1868.
+
+
+
+
+HOWARD AT ATLANTA.
+
+RIGHT in the track where Sherman
+Ploughed his red furrow,
+Out of the narrow cabin,
+Up from the cellar's burrow,
+Gathered the little black people,
+With freedom newly dowered,
+Where, beside their Northern teacher,
+Stood the soldier, Howard.
+
+He listened and heard the children
+Of the poor and long-enslaved
+Reading the words of Jesus,
+Singing the songs of David.
+Behold!--the dumb lips speaking,
+The blind eyes seeing!
+Bones of the Prophet's vision
+Warmed into being!
+
+Transformed he saw them passing
+Their new life's portal
+Almost it seemed the mortal
+Put on the immortal.
+No more with the beasts of burden,
+No more with stone and clod,
+But crowned with glory and honor
+In the image of God!
+
+There was the human chattel
+Its manhood taking;
+There, in each dark, bronze statue,
+A soul was waking!
+The man of many battles,
+With tears his eyelids pressing,
+Stretched over those dusky foreheads
+His one-armed blessing.
+
+And he said: "Who hears can never
+Fear for or doubt you;
+What shall I tell the children
+Up North about you?"
+Then ran round a whisper, a murmur,
+Some answer devising:
+And a little boy stood up: "General,
+Tell 'em we're rising!"
+
+O black boy of Atlanta!
+But half was spoken
+The slave's chain and the master's
+Alike are broken.
+The one curse of the races
+Held both in tether
+They are rising,--all are rising,
+The black and white together!
+
+O brave men and fair women!
+Ill comes of hate and scorning
+Shall the dark faces only
+Be turned to mourning?--
+Make Time your sole avenger,
+All-healing, all-redressing;
+Meet Fate half-way, and make it
+A joy and blessing!
+1869.
+
+
+
+
+THE EMANCIPATION GROUP.
+
+Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate
+of the Freedman's Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington.
+The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a
+slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in
+gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The group was designed by Thomas Ball,
+and was unveiled December 9, 1879. These verses were written for the
+occasion.
+
+AMIDST thy sacred effigies
+Of old renown give place,
+O city, Freedom-loved! to his
+Whose hand unchained a race.
+
+Take the worn frame, that rested not
+Save in a martyr's grave;
+The care-lined face, that none forgot,
+Bent to the kneeling slave.
+
+Let man be free! The mighty word
+He spake was not his own;
+An impulse from the Highest stirred
+These chiselled lips alone.
+
+The cloudy sign, the fiery guide,
+Along his pathway ran,
+And Nature, through his voice, denied
+The ownership of man.
+
+We rest in peace where these sad eyes
+Saw peril, strife, and pain;
+His was the nation's sacrifice,
+And ours the priceless gain.
+
+O symbol of God's will on earth
+As it is done above!
+Bear witness to the cost and worth
+Of justice and of love.
+
+Stand in thy place and testify
+To coming ages long,
+That truth is stronger than a lie,
+And righteousness than wrong.
+
+
+
+
+THE JUBILEE SINGERS.
+
+A number of students of Fisk University, under the direction of one of
+the officers, gave a series of concerts in the Northern States, for the
+purpose of establishing the college on a firmer financial foundation.
+Their hymns and songs, mostly in a minor key, touched the hearts of the
+people, and were received as peculiarly expressive of a race delivered
+from bondage.
+
+VOICE of a people suffering long,
+The pathos of their mournful song,
+The sorrow of their night of wrong!
+
+Their cry like that which Israel gave,
+A prayer for one to guide and save,
+Like Moses by the Red Sea's wave!
+
+The stern accord her timbrel lent
+To Miriam's note of triumph sent
+O'er Egypt's sunken armament!
+
+The tramp that startled camp and town,
+And shook the walls of slavery down,
+The spectral march of old John Brown!
+
+The storm that swept through battle-days,
+The triumph after long delays,
+The bondmen giving God the praise!
+
+Voice of a ransomed race, sing on
+Till Freedom's every right is won,
+And slavery's every wrong undone
+1880.
+
+
+
+
+GARRISON.
+
+The earliest poem in this division was my youthful tribute to the great
+reformer when himself a young man he was first sounding his trumpet in
+Essex County. I close with the verses inscribed to him at the end of his
+earthly career, May 24, 1879. My poetical service in the cause of
+freedom is thus almost synchronous with his life of devotion to the
+same cause.
+
+THE storm and peril overpast,
+The hounding hatred shamed and still,
+Go, soul of freedom! take at last
+The place which thou alone canst fill.
+
+Confirm the lesson taught of old--
+Life saved for self is lost, while they
+Who lose it in His service hold
+The lease of God's eternal day.
+
+Not for thyself, but for the slave
+Thy words of thunder shook the world;
+No selfish griefs or hatred gave
+The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled.
+
+From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew
+We heard a tender under song;
+Thy very wrath from pity grew,
+From love of man thy hate of wrong.
+
+Now past and present are as one;
+The life below is life above;
+Thy mortal years have but begun
+Thy immortality of love.
+
+With somewhat of thy lofty faith
+We lay thy outworn garment by,
+Give death but what belongs to death,
+And life the life that cannot die!
+
+Not for a soul like thine the calm
+Of selfish ease and joys of sense;
+But duty, more than crown or palm,
+Its own exceeding recompense.
+
+Go up and on thy day well done,
+Its morning promise well fulfilled,
+Arise to triumphs yet unwon,
+To holier tasks that God has willed.
+
+Go, leave behind thee all that mars
+The work below of man for man;
+With the white legions of the stars
+Do service such as angels can.
+
+Wherever wrong shall right deny
+Or suffering spirits urge their plea,
+Be thine a voice to smite the lie,
+A hand to set the captive free!
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS IN WARTIME ***
+By John Greenleaf Whittier
+
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