Songs of Labor and Reform: Part 5 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier — John Shaqi
Songs of Labor and Reform: Part 5 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
General
Songs of Labor and Reform: Part 5 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Poetry
This eBook was produced by David Widger
ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS
SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM
BY
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM
CONTENTS:
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME
DEMOCRACY
THE GALLOWS
SEED-TIME AND HARVEST
TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND
THE HUMAN SACRIFICE
SONGS OF LABOR
DEDICATION
THE SHOEMAKERS
THE FISHERMEN
THE LUMBERMEN
THE SHIP-BUILDERS
THE DROVERS
THE HUSKERS
THE REFORMER
THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT
THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS
THE MEN OF OLD
TO PIUS IX.
CALEF IN BOSTON
OUR STATE
THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES
THE PEACE OF EUROPE
ASTRAEA
THE DISENTHRALLED
THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY
THE DREAM OF PIO NONO
THE VOICES
THE NEW EXODUS
THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND
THE EVE OF ELECTION
FROM PERUGIA
ITALY
FREEDOM IN BRAZIL
AFTER ELECTION
DISARMAMENT
THE PROBLEM
OUR COUNTRY
ON THE BIG HORN
NOTES
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME.
THE Quaker of the olden time!
How calm and firm and true,
Unspotted by its wrong and crime,
He walked the dark earth through.
The lust of power, the love of gain,
The thousand lures of sin
Around him, had no power to stain
The purity within.
With that deep insight which detects
All great things in the small,
And knows how each man's life affects
The spiritual life of all,
He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law;
The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw.
He felt that wrong with wrong partakes,
That nothing stands alone,
That whoso gives the motive, makes
His brother's sin his own.
And, pausing not for doubtful choice
Of evils great or small,
He listened to that inward voice
Which called away from all.
O Spirit of that early day,
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
Give strength the evil to forsake,
The cross of Truth to bear,
And love and reverent fear to make
Our daily lives a prayer!
1838.
DEMOCRACY.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so
to them.--MATTHEW vii. 12.
BEARER of Freedom's holy light,
Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,
The foe of all which pains the sight,
Or wounds the generous ear of God!
Beautiful yet thy temples rise,
Though there profaning gifts are thrown;
And fires unkindled of the skies
Are glaring round thy altar-stone.
Still sacred, though thy name be breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed
Around the haughty brows of Pride.
Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time!
The faith in which my father stood,
Even when the sons of Lust and Crime
Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood!
Still to those courts my footsteps turn,
For through the mists which darken there,
I see the flame of Freedom burn,--
The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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