Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/327

Rh Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, The myriad-handed pioneer may pour, And the wild West with the roused North combine And heave the engineer of evil with his mine.


 * On its roofs and steeples shed,
 * Shadows weaving with the sunlight
 * From the gray sky overhead,

Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread.


 * Through this broad street, restless ever,
 * Ebbs and flows a human tide,
 * Wave on wave a living river;
 * Wealth and fashion side by side;

Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.


 * Underneath yon dome, whose coping
 * Springs above them, vast and tall,
 * Grave men in the dust are groping
 * For the largess, base and small,

Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall.


 * Base of heart! They vilely barter
 * Honor’s wealth for party’s place;
 * Step by step on Freedom’s charter
 * Leaving footprints of disgrace;

For to-day’s poor pittance turning from the great hope of their race.


 * Yet, where festal lamps are throwing
 * Glory round the dancer’s hair,
 * Gold-tressed, like an angel’s, flowing
 * Backward on the sunset air;

And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure sweet and rare:


 * There to-night shall woman’s glances,
 * Star-like, welcome give to them;
 * Fawning fools with shy advances
 * Seek to touch their garments’ hem,

With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth condemn.


 * From this glittering lie my vision
 * Takes a broader, sadder range,
 * Full before me have arisen
 * Other pictures dark and strange;

From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness change.


 * Hark! the heavy gate is swinging
 * On its hinges, harsh and slow;
 * One pale prison lamp is flinging
 * On a fearful group below

Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe’er it does not show.


 * Pitying God! Is that a woman
 * On whose wrist the shackles clash?
 * Is that shriek she utters human,
 * Underneath the stinging lash?

Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad procession flash?


 * Still the dance goes gayly onward!
 * What is it to Wealth and Pride
 * That without the stars are looking
 * On a scene which earth should hide?

That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking on Potomac’s tide!


 * Vainly to that mean Ambition
 * Which, upon a rival’s fall,
 * Winds above its old condition,
 * With a reptile’s slimy crawl,

Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish call.


 * Vainly to the child of Fashion,
 * Giving to ideal woe
 * Graceful luxury of compassion,
 * Shall the stricken mourner go;

Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show!


 * Nay, my words are all too sweeping:
 * In this crowded human mart,
 * Feeling is not dead, but sleeping;
 * Man’s strong will and woman’s heart,

In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part.


 * And from yonder sunny valleys,
 * Southward in the distance lost,
 * Freedom yet shall summon allies
 * Worthier than the North can boast,

With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost.