Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete: Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
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Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete: Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
His cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave;
Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song,
Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong;
Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned divine,
O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine,
To plumed and sworded auditors, shall prove
Their trade accordant with the Law of Love;
And Church for State, and State for Church, shall fight,
And both agree, that "Might alone is Right!"
Despite of sneers like these, O faithful few,
Who dare to hold God's word and witness true,
Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time,
And o'er the present wilderness of crime
Sees the calm future, with its robes of green,
Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft streams between,--
Still keep the path which duty bids ye tread,
Though worldly wisdom shake the cautious head;
No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere,
Without the greeting of the skeptic's sneer;
Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall,
Common as dew and sunshine, over all."
Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the strife shall cease,
Like Morven's harpers, sing your song of peace;
As in old fable rang the Thracian's lyre,
Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal fire,
Till the fierce din to pleasing murmurs fell,
And love subdued the maddened heart of hell.
Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue,
Which the glad angels of the Advent sung,
Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour's birth,
Glory to God, and peace unto the earth
Through the mad discord send that calming word
Which wind and wave on wild Genesareth heard,
Lift in Christ's name his Cross against the Sword!
Not vain the vision which the prophets saw,
Skirting with green the fiery waste of war,
Through the hot sand-gleam, looming soft and calm
On the sky's rim, the fountain-shading palm.
Still lives for Earth, which fiends so long have trod,
The great hope resting on the truth of God,--
Evil shall cease and Violence pass away,
And the tired world breathe free through a long
Sabbath day.
11th mo., 1848.
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
Before the law authorizing imprisonment for debt had been abolished in
Massachusetts, a revolutionary pensioner was confined in Charlestown
jail for a debt of fourteen dollars, and on the fourth of July was seen
waving a handkerchief from the bars of his cell in honor of the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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