Narrative Poems, part 6, Pennsylvania Pilgrim | Page 4

behind the reverend row?Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show,?I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe.
"And, in the spirit, I was taken where?They toiled and suffered; I was made aware?Of shame and wrath and anguish and despair!
"And while the meeting smothered our poor plea?With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed to be,?As ye have done to these ye do to me!'
"So it all passed; and the old tithe went on?Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun?Set, leaving still the weightier work undone.
"Help, for the good man faileth! Who is strong,?If these be weak? Who shall rebuke the wrong,?If these consent? How long, O Lord! how long!"
He ceased; and, bound in spirit with the bound,?With folded arms, and eyes that sought the ground,?Walked musingly his little garden round.
About him, beaded with the falling dew,?Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew,?Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew.
For, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage,?With the mild mystics of his dreamy age?He read the herbal signs of nature's page,
As once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's' bowers?Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours,?The pious Spener read his creed in flowers.
"The dear Lord give us patience!" said his wife,?Touching with finger-tip an aloe, rife?With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife
Or Carib spear, a gift to William Penn?From the rare gardens of John Evelyn,?Brought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen.
"See this strange plant its steady purpose hold,?And, year by year, its patient leaves unfold,?Till the young eyes that watched it first are old.
"But some time, thou hast told me, there shall come?A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume,?The century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom.
"So may the seed which hath been sown to-day?Grow with the years, and, after long delay,?Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea!
"Answer at last the patient prayers of them?Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem?Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem.
"Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and wait,?Remains for us. The wrong indeed is great,?But love and patience conquer soon or late."
"Well hast thou said, my Anna!" Tenderer?Than youth's caress upon the head of her?Pastorius laid his hand. "Shall we demur
"Because the vision tarrieth? In an hour?We dream not of, the slow-grown bud may flower,?And what was sown in weakness rise in power!"
Then through the vine-draped door whose legend read,?"Procul este profani!" Anna led?To where their child upon his little bed
Looked up and smiled. "Dear heart," she said, "if we?Must bearers of a heavy burden be,?Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see
"When from the gallery to the farthest seat,?Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet,?But all sit equal at the Master's feet."
On the stone hearth the blazing walnut block?Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock?Rebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock,
Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side?By side with Fox and Belimen, played at hide?And seek with Anna, midst her household pride
Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare?Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where,?Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware,
The courtly Penn had praised the goodwife's cheer,?And quoted Horace o'er her home brewed beer,?Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear.
In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave,?He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave?Food to the poor and shelter to the slave.
For all too soon the New World's scandal shamed?The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed,?And men withheld the human rights they claimed.
And slowly wealth and station sanction lent,?And hardened avarice, on its gains intent,?Stifled the inward whisper of dissent.
Yet all the while the burden rested sore?On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore?Their warning message to the Church's door
In God's name; and the leaven of the word?Wrought ever after in the souls who heard,?And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred
To troubled life, and urged the vain excuse?Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use,?Good in itself if evil in abuse.
Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less?Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress?Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness.
One Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot;?He hid the outcast, and betrayed him not;?And, when his prey the human hunter sought,
He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay?And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay,?To speed the black guest safely on his way.
Yet, who shall guess his bitter grief who lends?His life to some great cause, and finds his friends?Shame or betray it for their private ends?
How felt the Master when his chosen strove?In childish folly for their seats above;?And that fond mother, blinded by her love,
Besought him that her sons, beside his throne,?Might sit on either hand? Amidst his own?A stranger oft, companionless and lone,
God's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's pain?Is not alone from scourge and cell and chain;?Sharper the pang when, shouting in his train,
His weak disciples by their lives deny?The loud hosannas of their daily cry,?And make their echo of his