Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/309

Rh A “Pastoral Letter,” grave and dull;
 * Alas! in hoof and horns and features,

How different is your Brookfield bull
 * From him who bellows from St. Peter’s!

Your pastoral rights and powers from harm,
 * Think ye, can words alone preserve them?

Your wiser fathers taught the arm
 * And sword of temporal power to serve them.

Oh, glorious days, when Church and State
 * Were wedded by your spiritual fathers!

And on submissive shoulders sat
 * Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers.

No vile “itinerant” then could mar
 * The beauty of your tranquil Zion,

But at his peril of the scar
 * Of hangman’s whip and branding-iron.

Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church
 * Of heretic and mischief-maker,

And priest and bailiff joined in search,
 * By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker!

The stocks were at each church’s door,
 * The gallows stood on Boston Common,

A Papist’s ears the pillory bore,—
 * The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!

Your fathers dealt not as ye deal
 * With “non-professing” frantic teachers;

They bored the tongue with red-hot steel,
 * And flayed the backs of “female preachers.”

Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue,
 * And Salem’s streets could tell their story,

Of fainting woman dragged along,
 * Gashed by the whip accursed and gory!

And will ye ask me, why this taunt
 * Of memories sacred from the scorner?

And why with reckless band I plant
 * A nettle on the graves ye honor?

Not to reproach New England’s dead
 * This record from the past I summon,

Of manhood to the scaffold led,
 * And suffering and heroic woman.

No, for yourselves alone, I turn
 * The pages of intolerance over,

That, in their spirit, dark and stern,
 * Ye haply may your own discover!

For, if ye claim the “pastoral right”
 * To silence Freedom’s voice of warning,

And from your precincts shut the light
 * Of Freedom’s day around ye dawning;

If when an earthquake voice of power
 * And signs in earth and heaven are showing

That forth, in its appointed hour,
 * The Spirit of the Lord is going!

And, with that Spirit, Freedom’s light
 * On kindred, tongue, and people breaking,

Whose slumbering millions, at the sight,
 * In glory and in strength are waking!

When for the sighing of the poor,
 * And for the needy, God hath risen,

And chains are breaking, and a door
 * Is opening for the souls in prison!

If then ye would, with puny hands,
 * Arrest the very work of Heaven,

And bind anew the evil bands
 * Which God’s right arm of power hath riven;

What marvel that, in many a mind,
 * Those darker deeds of bigot madness

Are closely with your own combined,
 * Yet “less in anger than in sadness”?

What marvel, if the people learn
 * To claim the right of free opinion?

What marvel, if at times they spurn
 * The ancient yoke of your dominion?

A glorious remnant linger yet,
 * Whose lips are wet at Freedom’s fountains,

The coming of whose welcome feet
 * Is beautiful upon our mountains!

Men, who the gospel tidings bring
 * Of Liberty and Love forever,

Whose joy is an abiding spring,
 * Whose peace is as a gentle river!

But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale
 * Of Carolina’s high-souled daughters,

Which echoes here the mournful wail
 * Of sorrow from Edisto’s waters,

Close while ye may the public ear,
 * With malice vex, with slander wound them,

The pure and good shall throng to hear,
 * And tried and manly hearts surround them.

Oh, ever may the power which led
 * Their way to such a fiery trial,

And strengthened womanhood to tread
 * The wine-press of such self-denial,