Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/128

120

THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,

Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield

The scourge that drove the laborer to the field,

And look with stony eye on human tears,

Thy cruel reign is o'er;

Thy bondmen crouch no more

In terror at the menace of thine eye;

For He who marks the bounds of guilty power,

Long-suffering, hath heard the captive's cry,

And touched his shackles at the appointed hour,

And lo! they fall, and he whose limbs they galled

Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled.

A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent;

Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks;

Our rivers roll exulting, and their banks

Send up hosannas to the firmament.

Fields, where the bondman's toil

No more shall trench the soil,

Seem now to bask in a serener day;

The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs

Of heaven with more caressing softness play,

Welcoming man to liberty like theirs.

A glory clothes the land from sea to sea,

For the great land and all its coasts are free.

Within that land wert thou enthroned of late,

And they by whom the nation's laws were made,

And they who filled its judgment-seats, obeyed

Thy mandate, rigid as the will of fate.

Fierce men at thy right hand,

With gesture of command,

Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay;

And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not,

Shrank from thy presence, and, in blank dismay,

Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought;

While meaner cowards, mingling with thy train,

Proved, from the book of God, thy right to reign.

Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to shore,

The wrath of God o'ertook thee in thy pride;

Thou sitt'st a ghastly shadow; by thy side

Thy once strong arms hang nerveless evermore.

And they who quailed but now

Before thy lowering brow