Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/303

Rh Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye. Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail, And the head of his steed take the place of the tail. Oh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then, For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men?

this the land our fathers loved,
 * The freedom which they toiled to win?

Is this the soil whereon they moved?
 * Are these the graves they slumber in?

Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn?

And shall we crouch above these graves,
 * With craven soul and fettered lip?

Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,
 * And tremble at the driver’s whip?

Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak but as our masters please?

Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?
 * Shall Mercy’s tears no longer flow?

Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel,
 * The dungeon’s gloom, the assassin’s blow,

Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth, our Country, and the slave?

Of human skulls that shrine was made,
 * Round which the priests of Mexico

Before their loathsome idol prayed;
 * Is Freedom’s altar fashioned so?

And must we yield to Freedom’s God, As offering meet, the negro’s blood?

Shall tongue be mute, when deeds are wrought
 * Which well might shame extremest hell?

Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?
 * Shall Pity’s bosom cease to swell?

Shall Honor bleed?—shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?

No; by each spot of haunted ground,
 * Where Freedom weeps her children’s fall;

By Plymouth’s rock, and Bunker’s mound;
 * By Griswold’s stained and shattered wall;

By Warren’s ghost, by Langdon’s shade; By all the memories of our dead!

By their enlarging souls, which burst
 * The bands and fetters round them set;

By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed
 * Within our inmost bosoms, yet,

By all above, around, below, Be ours the indignant answer,—No!

No; guided by our country’s laws,
 * For truth, and right, and suffering man,

Be ours to strive in Freedom’s cause,
 * As Christians may, as freemen can!

Still pouring on unwilling ears That truth oppression only fears.

What! shall we guard our neighbor still,
 * While woman shrieks beneath his rod,

And while he tramples down at will
 * The image of a common God?

Shall watch and ward be round him set, Of Northern nerve and bayonet?

And shall we know and share with him
 * The danger and the growing shame?

And see our Freedom’s light grow dim,
 * Which should have filled the world with flame?

And, writhing, feel, where’er we turn, A world’s reproach around us burn?

Is ’t not enough that this is borne?
 * And asks our haughty neighbor more?

Must fetters which his slaves have worn
 * Clank round the Yankee farmer’s door?

Must he be told, beside his plough, What he must speak, and when, and how?

Must he be told his freedom stands
 * On Slavery’s dark foundations strong;

On breaking hearts and fettered hands,
 * On robbery, and crime, and wrong?