Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/310

278   Be round them in an evil land,
 * With wisdom and with strength from Heaven,

With Miriam’s voice, and Judith’s hand,
 * And Deborah’s song, for triumph given!

And what are ye who strive with God
 * Against the ark of His salvation,

Moved by the breath of prayer abroad,
 * With blessings for a dying nation?

What, but the stubble and the hay
 * To perish, even as flax consuming,

With all that bars His glorious way,
 * Before the brightness of His coming?

And thou, sad Angel, who so long
 * Hast waited for the glorious token,

That Earth from all her bonds of wrong
 * To liberty and light has broken,—

Angel of Freedom! soon to thee
 * The sounding trumpet shall be given,

And over Earth’s full jubilee
 * Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven!


 * To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air;
 * Gone, gone,—sold and gone,
 * To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
 * From Virginia’s hills and waters;
 * Woe is me, my stolen daughters!


 * Gone, gone,—sold and gone,
 * To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

There no mother’s eye is near them, There no mother’s ear can hear them; Never, when the torturing lash Seams their back with many a gash, Shall a mother’s kindness bless them, Or a mother’s arms caress them.
 * Gone, gone,—sold and gone,
 * To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
 * From Virginia’s hills and waters;
 * Woe is me, my stolen daughters!


 * Gone, gone,—sold and gone,
 * To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

Oh, when weary, sad, and slow, From the fields at night they go, Faint with toil, and racked with pain, To their cheerless homes again, There no brother’s voice shall greet them; There no father’s welcome meet them.