Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/335

Rh Your world-wide honor stained with shame,— Your freedom’s self a hollow name!

Where ’s now the flag of that old war? Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star? Bear witness, Palo Alto’s day, Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey, Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, Fleshes the Northern eagle’s beak; Symbol of terror and despair, Of chains and slaves, go seek it there!

Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks! Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva’s banks! Brave sport to see the fledgling born Of Freedom by its parent torn! Safe now is Speilberg’s dungeon cell, Safe drear Siberia’s frozen hell: With Slavery’s flag o’er both unrolled, What of the New World fears the Old?

upon thy lap
 * Thy weary ones receiving,

And o’er them, silent as a dream,
 * Thy grassy mantle weaving,

Fold softly in thy long embrace
 * That heart so worn and broken,

And cool its pulse of fire beneath
 * Thy shadows old and oaken.

Shut out from him the bitter word
 * And serpent hiss of scorning;

Nor let the storms of yesterday
 * Disturb his quiet morning.

Breathe over him forgetfulness
 * Of all save deeds of kindness,

And, save to smiles of grateful eyes,
 * Press down his lids in blindness.

There, where with living ear and eye
 * He heard Potomac’s flowing,

And, through his tall ancestral trees,
 * Saw autumn’s sunset glowing,

He sleeps, still looking to the west,
 * Beneath the dark wood shadow,

As if he still would see the sun
 * Sink down on wave and meadow.

Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himself
 * All moods of mind contrasting,—

The tenderest wail of human woe,
 * The scorn like lightning blasting;

The pathos which from rival eyes
 * Unwilling tears could summon,

The stinging taunt, the fiery burst
 * Of hatred scarcely human!

Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower,
 * From lips of life-long sadness;

Clear picturings of majestic thought
 * Upon a ground of madness;

And over all Romance and Song
 * A classic beauty throwing,

And laurelled Clio at his side
 * Her storied pages showing.

All parties feared him: each in turn
 * Beheld its schemes disjointed,

As right or left his fatal glance
 * And spectral finger pointed.

Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down
 * With trenchant wit unsparing,

And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand
 * The robe Pretence was wearing.

Too honest or too proud to feign
 * A love he never cherished,

Beyond Virginia’s border line
 * His patriotism perished.

While others hailed in distant skies
 * Our eagle’s dusky pinion,

He only saw the mountain bird
 * Stoop o’er his Old Dominion!

Still through each change of fortune strange,
 * Racked nerve, and brain all burning,

His loving faith in Mother-land
 * Knew never shade of turning;

By Britain’s lakes, by Neva’s tide,
 * Whatever sky was o’er him,

He heard her rivers’ rushing sound,
 * Her blue peaks rose before him.