Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 9

to hear it?Within her grave.
Oh, let that voice go forth! The bondman sighing?By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane,?Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying,?Revive again.
Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing?Sadly upon us from afar shall smile,?And unto God devout thanksgiving raising?Bless us the while.
Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy,?For the deliverance of a groaning earth,?For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly,?Let it go forth!
Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter?With all they left ye perilled and at stake??Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar?The fire awake.
Prayer-strenthened for the trial, come together,?Put on the harness for the moral fight,?And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father,?Maintain the right?1836.
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.
Thomas Shipley of Philadelphia was a lifelong Christian philanthropist, and advocate of emancipation. At his funeral thousands of colored people came to take their last look at their friend and protector. He died September 17, 1836.
GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest!?The flowers of Eden round thee blowing,?And on thine ear the murmurs blest?Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives?To all the earth its healing leaves?In the white robe of angels clad,?And wandering by that sacred river,?Whose streams of holiness make glad?The city of our God forever!
Gentlest of spirits! not for thee?Our tears are shed, our sighs are given;?Why mourn to know thou art a free?Partaker of the joys of heaven??Finished thy work, and kept thy faith?In Christian firmness unto death;?And beautiful as sky and earth,?When autumn's sun is downward going,?The blessed memory of thy worth?Around thy place of slumber glowing!
But woe for us! who linger still?With feebler strength and hearts less lowly,?And minds less steadfast to the will?Of Him whose every work is holy.?For not like thine, is crucified?The spirit of our human pride?And at the bondman's tale of woe,?And for the outcast and forsaken,?Not warm like thine, but cold and slow,?Our weaker sympathies awaken.
Darkly upon our struggling way?The storm of human hate is sweeping;?Hunted and branded, and a prey,?Our watch amidst the darkness keeping,?Oh, for that hidden strength which can?Nerve unto death the inner man?Oh, for thy spirit, tried and true,?And constant in the hour of trial,?Prepared to suffer, or to do,?In meekness and in self-denial.
Oh, for that spirit, meek and mild,?Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining;?By man deserted and reviled,?Yet faithful to its trust remaining.?Still prompt and resolute to save?From scourge and chain the hunted slave;?Unwavering in the Truth's defence,?Even where the fires of Hate were burning,?The unquailing eye of innocence?Alone upon the oppressor turning!
O loved of thousands! to thy grave,?Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee.?The poor man and the rescued slave?Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee;?And grateful tears, like summer rain,?Quickened its dying grass again!?And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine,?Shall cone the outcast and the lowly,?Of gentle deeds and words of thine?Recalling memories sweet and holy!
Oh, for the death the righteous die!?An end, like autumn's day declining,?On human hearts, as on the sky,?With holier, tenderer beauty shining;?As to the parting soul were given?The radiance of an opening heaven!?As if that pure and blessed light,?From off the Eternal altar flowing,?Were bathing, in its upward flight,?The spirit to its worship going!?1836.
THE MORAL WARFARE.
WHEN Freedom, on her natal day,?Within her war-rocked cradle lay,?An iron race around her stood,?Baptized her infant brow in blood;?And, through the storm which round her swept,?Their constant ward and watching kept.
Then, where our quiet herds repose,?The roar of baleful battle rose,?And brethren of a common tongue?To mortal strife as tigers sprung,?And every gift on Freedom's shrine?Was man for beast, and blood for wine!
Our fathers to their graves have gone;?Their strife is past, their triumph won;?But sterner trials wait the race?Which rises in their honored place;?A moral warfare with the crime?And folly of an evil time.
So let it be. In God's own might?We gird us for the coming fight,?And, strong in Him whose cause is ours?In conflict with unholy powers,?We grasp the weapons He has given,--?The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.?1836.
RITNER.
Written on reading the Message of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 1836. The fact redounds to the credit and serves to perpetuate the memory of the independent farmer and high-souled statesman, that he alone of all the Governors of the Union in 1836 met the insulting demands and menaces of the South in a manner becoming a freeman and hater of Slavery, in his message to the Legislature of Pennsylvania.
THANK God for the token! one lip is still free,?One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee!?Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm,?Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm;?When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God,?Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood;?When the recreant North has forgotten her trust,?And the lip of her honor is low in the dust,--?Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken!?Thank God, that