Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/377

Rh With rudder foully broken,
 * And sails by traitors torn,

Our country on a midnight sea
 * Is waiting for the morn.

Before her, nameless terror;
 * Behind, the pirate foe;

The clouds are black above her,
 * The sea is white below.

The hope of all who suffer,
 * The dread of all who wrong,

She drifts in darkness and in storm,
 * How long, O Lord! how long?

But courage, O my mariners!
 * Ye shall not suffer wreck,

While up to God the freedman’s prayers
 * Are rising from your deck.

Is not your sail the banner
 * Which God hath blest anew,

The mantle that De Matha wore,
 * The red, the white, the blue?

Its hues are all of heaven,—
 * The red of sunset’s dye,

The whiteness of the moon-lit cloud,
 * The blue of morning’s sky.

Wait cheerily, then, O mariners,
 * For daylight and for land;

The breath of God is in your sail,
 * Your rudder is His hand.

Sail on, sail on, deep-freighted
 * With blessings and with hopes;

The saints of old with shadowy hands
 * Are pulling at your ropes.

Behind ye holy martyrs
 * Uplift the palm and crown;

Before ye unborn ages send
 * Their benedictions down.

Take heart from John de Matha!—
 * God’s errands never fail!

Sweep on through storm and darkness,
 * The thunder and the hail!

Sail on! The morning cometh,
 * The port ye yet shall win;

And all the bells of God shall ring
 * The good ship bravely in!


 * Clang of bell and roar of gun

Send the tidings up and down.
 * How the belfries rock and reel!
 * How the great guns, peal on peal,

Fling the joy from town to town!


 * Ring, O bells!
 * Every stroke exulting tells

Of the burial hour of crime.
 * Loud and long, that all may hear,
 * Ring for every listening ear

Of Eternity and Time!


 * Let us kneel:
 * God’s own voice is in that peal,

And this spot is holy ground.
 * Lord, forgive us! What are we,
 * That our eyes this glory see,

That our ears have heard the sound!


 * For the Lord
 * On the whirlwind is abroad;

In the earthquake He has spoken;
 * He has smitten with His thunder
 * The iron walls asunder,

And the gates of brass are broken!


 * Loud and long
 * Lift the old exulting song;

Sing with Miriam by the sea,
 * He has cast the mighty down;
 * Horse and rider sink and drown;

“He hath triumphed gloriously!”


 * Did we dare,
 * In our agony of prayer,

Ask for more than He has done?