Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/346

314   I hear a voice: “Thus saith the Law,
 * Let Love be dumb;

Clasping her liberal hands in awe, Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw
 * From hearth and home.”

I hear another voice: “The poor
 * Are thine to feed;

Turn not the outcast from thy door, Nor give to bonds and wrong once more
 * Whom God hath freed.”

Dear Lord! between that law and Thee
 * No choice remains;

Yet not untrue to man’s decree, Though spurning its rewards, is he
 * Who bears its pains.

Not mine Sedition’s trumpet-blast
 * And threatening word;

I read the lesson of the Past, That firm endurance wins at last
 * More than the sword.

O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou
 * So calm and strong!

Lend strength to weakness, teach us how The sleepless eyes of God look through
 * This night of wrong!

moon has set: while yet the dawn
 * Breaks cold and gray,

Between the midnight and the morn
 * Bear off your prey!

On, swift and still! the conscious street
 * Is panged and stirred;

Tread light! that fall of serried feet
 * The dead have heard!

The first drawn blood of Freedom’s veins
 * Gushed where ye tread;

Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stains
 * Blush darkly red!

Beneath the slowly-waning stars
 * And whitening day,

What stern and awful presence bars
 * That sacred way?

What faces frown upon ye, dark
 * With shame and pain?

Come these from Plymouth’s Pilgrim bark?
 * Is that young Vane?

Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on
 * With mocking cheer?

Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson,
 * And Gage are here!

For ready mart or favoring blast
 * Through Moloch’s fire,

Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed
 * The Tyrian sire.

Ye make that ancient sacrifice
 * Of Man to Gain,

Your traffic thrives, where Freedom dies,
 * Beneath the chain.

Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scorn
 * And hate, is near;

How think ye freemen, mountain-born,
 * The tale will hear?

Thank God! our mother State can yet
 * Her fame retrieve;

To you and to your children let
 * The scandal cleave.

Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press,
 * Make gods of gold;

Let honor, truth, and manliness
 * Like wares be sold.

Your hoards are great, your walls are strong,
 * But God is just;

The gilded chambers built by wrong
 * Invite the rust.