Page:A voice from Harper's Ferry (1861).djvu/71

Rh You think, no doubt, you've tried John Brown, but he's laid there trying you,

And the world has been his jury, and its judgment's swift and true:

Over the globe the tale has rung, back to your hearts the verdict's flung,

That you're found, as you've been always found, a brutal, cowardly crew!

At the wave of his hand to a dozen men, two thousand slunk like hounds;

He kennelled you up, and kept you too, till twice you saw through the azure blue,

The day-star circle round.

No longer the taunt, our history's new, "our hero is yet to come"—

We've suddenly leaped a thousand years beyond the rolling sun!

And, sheeted round with a martyr's glory, again on earth's renewed the story

Of bravery, truth, and righteousness, a battle lost and won;

A life laid down for the poor and weak, the immortal crown put on;

The spark of Luther's touched to the pile—swords gleam—black smoke obscures the sun—

And the slave and his master are gone!

Ages hence, when all is over that shocks the sense of the world to-day,

Pilgrims will mount the western wave, seeking the new Thermopylæ;

Then, for that brave old man with many sons, mangled and murdered, one by one,

Whose ghosts rise up from Harper's gorge, Missouri's plains, and far away

Where Kansas' grains wave tinged with their blood, will the column rise!

The Poet's song and History's page will the deeds prolong of John of Osawatomie,

The Martyr to Truth and Right!

