Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/345

Rh Shriek rose on shriek,—the Sabbath air
 * Her wild cries tore asunder;

I listened, with hushed breath, to hear
 * God answering with his thunder!

All still! the very altar’s cloth
 * Had smothered down her shrieking,

And, dumb, she turned from face to face,
 * For human pity seeking!

I saw her dragged along the aisle,
 * Her shackles harshly clanking;

I heard the parson, over all,
 * The Lord devoutly thanking!

My brain took fire: “Is this,” I cried,
 * “The end of prayer and preaching?

Then down with pulpit, down with priest,
 * And give us Nature’s teaching!

“Foul shame and scorn be on ye all
 * Who turn the good to evil,

And steal the Bible from the Lord,
 * To give it to the Devil!

“Than garbled text or parchment law
 * I own a statute higher;

And God is true, though every book
 * And every man ’s a liar!”

Just then I felt the deacon’s hand
 * In wrath my coat-tail seize on;

I heard the priest cry, “Infidel!”
 * The lawyer mutter, “Treason!”

I started up,—where now were church,
 * Slave, master, priest, and people?

I only heard the supper-bell,
 * Instead of clanging steeple.

But, on the open window’s sill,
 * O’er which the white blooms drifted,

The pages of a good old Book
 * The wind of summer lifted,

And flower and vine, like angel wings
 * Around the Holy Mother,

Waved softly there, as if God’s truth
 * And Mercy kissed each other.

And freely from the cherry-bough
 * Above the casement swinging,

With golden bosom to the sun,
 * The oriole was singing.

As bird and flower made plain of old
 * The lesson of the Teacher,

So now I heard the written Word
 * Interpreted by Nature!

For to my ear methought the breeze
 * Bore Freedom’s blessed word on;

Thus saith the Lord: Break every yoke,
 * Undo the heavy burden!

evil days have come, the poor
 * Are made a prey;

Bar up the hospitable door, Put out the fire-lights, point no more
 * The wanderer’s way.

For Pity now is crime; the chain
 * Which binds our States

Is melted at her hearth in twain, Is rusted by her tears’ soft rain:
 * Close up her gates.

Our Union, like a glacier stirred
 * By voice below,

Or bell of kine, or wing of bird, A beggar’s crust, a kindly word
 * May overthrow!

Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast
 * Our blood and name;

Bursting its century-bolted frost, Each gray cairn on the Northman’s coast
 * Cries out for shame!

Oh for the open firmament,
 * The prairie free,

The desert hillside, cavern-rent, The Pawnee’s lodge, the Arab’s tent,
 * The Bushman’s tree!

Than web of Persian loom most rare,
 * Or soft divan,

Better the rough rock, bleak and bare, Or hollow tree, which man may share
 * With suffering man.