Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/296

264  Where then was he whose fiery zeal Had taught the trampled heart to feel, Until despair itself grew strong, And vengeance fed its torch from wrong? Now, when the thunderbolt is speeding; Now, when oppression’s heart is bleeding; Now, when the latent curse of Time
 * Is raining down in fire and blood,

That curse which, through long years of crime,
 * Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood,—

Why strikes he not, the foremost one, Where murder’s sternest deeds are done?

He stood the aged palms beneath,
 * That shadowed o’er his humble door,

Listening, with half-suspended breath, To the wild sounds of fear and death,
 * Toussaint L’Ouverture!

What marvel that his heart beat high!
 * The blow for freedom had been given,

And blood had answered to the cry
 * Which Earth sent up to Heaven!

What marvel that a fierce delight Smiled grimly o’er his brow of night, As groan and shout and bursting flame Told where the midnight tempest came, With blood and fire along its van, And death behind! he was a Man!

Yes, dark-souled chieftain! if the light
 * Of mild Religion’s heavenly ray

Unveiled not to thy mental sight
 * The lowlier and the purer way,

In which the Holy Sufferer trod,
 * Meekly amidst the sons of crime;

That calm reliance upon God
 * For justice in His own good time;

That gentleness to which belongs Forgiveness for its many wrongs, Even as the primal martyr, kneeling For mercy on the evil-dealing; Let not the favored white man name Thy stern appeal, with words of blame. Has he not, with the light of heaven
 * Broadly around him, made the same?

Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven,
 * And gloried in his ghastly shame?

Kneeling amidst his brother’s blood, To offer mockery unto God, As if the High and Holy One Could smile on deeds of murder done! As if a human sacrifice Were purer in His holy eyes, Though offered up by Christian hands, Than the foul rites of Pagan lands!

Sternly, amidst his household band, His carbine grasped within his hand,
 * The white man stood, prepared and still,

Waiting the shock of maddened men, Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when
 * The horn winds through their caverned hill.

And one was weeping in his sight,
 * The sweetest flower of all the isle,

The bride who seemed but yesternight
 * Love’s fair embodied smile.

And, clinging to her trembling knee, Looked up the form of infancy, With tearful glance in either face The secret of its fear to trace.

“Ha! stand or die!” The white man’s eye
 * His steady musket gleamed along,

As a tall Negro hastened nigh,
 * With fearless step and strong.

“What ho, Toussaint!” A moment more, His shadow crossed the lighted floor. “Away!” he shouted; “fly with me, The white man’s bark is on the sea; Her sails must catch the seaward wind, For sudden vengeance sweeps behind. Our brethren from their graves have spoken, The yoke is spurned, the chain is broken; On all the hills our fires are glowing, Through all the vales red blood is flowing! No more the mocking White shall rest His foot upon the Negro’s breast; No more, at morn or eve, shall drip The warm blood from the driver’s whip: Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn For all the wrongs his race have borne, Though for each drop of Negro blood The white man’s veins shall pour a flood; Not all alone the sense of ill Around his heart is lingering still, Nor deeper can the white man feel The generous warmth of grateful zeal. Friends of the Negro! fly with me, The path is open to the sea: Away, for life!” He spoke, and pressed The young child to his manly breast, As, headlong, through the cracking cane, Down swept the dark insurgent train, Drunken and grim, with shout and yell Howled through the dark, like sounds from hell.