Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn; You’ve spurned our kindest counsels; you’ve hunted for our lives; And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves! We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch within The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin; We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and godlike soul of man! But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven; No slave-hunt in our borders,—no pirate on our strand! No fetters in the Bay State,—no slave upon our land! THE PINE-TREE[11] Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State’s rusted shield, Give to our Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner’s tattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England’s royal missive with a firm, “Thus saith the Lord!” Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array! What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day. Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries; Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? Would ye barter man for cotton? That your gains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream? Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam? O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! For another strong-voiced Adams in the city’s streets to cry, “Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet on Mammon’s lie! Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton’s latest pound, But in Heaven’s name keep your honor, keep the heart o’ the Bay State sound!” Where’s the man for Massachusetts? Where’s the voice to speak her free? Where’s the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? Has she none to break the silence? Has she none to do and dare? O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner’s tattered field! ICHABOD[12] So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore! Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall! Oh, dumb be passion’s stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night.