Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/328

296   :Now, the soul alone is willing:
 * Faint the heart and weak the knee;
 * And as yet no lip is thrilling
 * With the mighty words, “Be Free!”

Tarrieth long the land’s Good Angel, but his advent is to be!


 * Meanwhile, turning from the revel
 * To the prison-cell my sight,
 * For intenser hate of evil,
 * For a keener sense of right,

Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night!


 * “To thy duty now and ever!
 * Dream no more of rest or stay:
 * Give to Freedom’s great endeavor
 * All thou art and hast to-day:”

Thus, above the city’s murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say.


 * Ye with heart and vision gifted
 * To discern and love the right,
 * Whose worn faces have been lifted
 * To the slowly-growing light,

Where from Freedom’s sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of night!


 * Ye who through long years of trial
 * Still have held your purpose fast,
 * While a lengthening shade the dial
 * From the westering sunshine cast,

And of hope each hour’s denial seemed an echo of the last!


 * O my brothers! O my sisters!
 * Would to God that ye were near,
 * Gazing with me down the vistas
 * Of a sorrow strange and drear;

Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice I seem to hear!


 * With the storm above us driving,
 * With the false earth mined below,
 * Who shall marvel if thus striving
 * We have counted friend as foe;

Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow.


 * Well it may be that our natures
 * Have grown sterner and more hard,
 * And the freshness of their features
 * Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred,

And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred.


 * Be it so. It should not swerve us
 * From a purpose true and brave;
 * Dearer Freedom’s rugged service
 * Than the pastime of the slave;

Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the grave.


 * Let us then, uniting, bury
 * All our idle feuds in dust,
 * And to future conflicts carry
 * Mutual faith and common trust;

Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is most just.


 * From the eternal shadow rounding
 * All our sun and starlight here,
 * Voices of our lost ones sounding
 * Bid us be of heart and cheer,

Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear.


 * Know we not our dead are looking
 * Downward with a sad surprise,
 * All our strife of words rebuking
 * With their mild and loving eyes?

Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloud their blessed skies?


 * Let us draw their mantles o’er us
 * Which have fallen in our way;
 * Let us do the work before us,
 * Cheerly, bravely, while we may,

Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day!

home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day;