Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/276

264 with ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the western world. I fell by own misdeeds."

Thou muse-like, Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood of States, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in art, and most seductive song, why liest thou there with beauteous yet dishonoured brow, repossing on thy broken harp? "I scorned the law of God; banished and poisoned wisest, justest men; I loved the loveliness of flesh, embalmed it in the Parian stone; I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that in more than Parian speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod them down to earth ! Lo, therefore, have I become as those Barbarian States — as one of them!"

Oh, manly and majestic Rome, thy sevenfold mural crown, all broken at thy feet, why art thou here? It was not injustice brought thee low; for thy great book of law is prefaced with these words, justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right! "It was not the saint's ideal: it was the hypocrite's pretence! I made iniquity my law. I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces,—where thou mayst see the fox and hear the owl,—it fed my courtiers and my courtesans. Wicked men were my cabinet-counsellors, the flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondmen wet the soil with tears and blood. Do you not hear it crying yet to God ? Lo, here have I my recompense, tormented with such downfall as you see! Go back and tell the newborn child, who sitteth on the Alleghanies, laying his either hand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars about his youthful brow—tell him that there are rights which States must keep, or they shall suffer wrongs! Tell him there is a God who keeps the black man and the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks His just, eternal law! Warn the young Empire that he come not down dim and dishonoured to my shameful tomb! Tell him that justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right. I Imew it, broke it, and am lost. Bid him to know it, keep it, and be safe!"

"God save the Commonwealth!" proclaims the Go-