Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 8

and bayonet?
And shall we know and share with him
The danger and the growing

shame?
And see our Freedom's light grow dim,
Which should have
filled the world with flame?
And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,

A world's reproach around us burn?
Is 't not enough that this is borne?
And asks our haughty neighbor
more?
Must fetters which his slaves have worn
Clank round the
Yankee farmer's door?
Must he be told, beside his plough,
What he
must speak, and when, and how?
Must he be told his freedom stands
On Slavery's dark foundations
strong;
On breaking hearts and fettered hands,
On robbery, and
crime, and wrong?
That all his fathers taught is vain,--
That
Freedom's emblem is the chain?
Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn!
False, foul, profane! Go, teach
as well
Of holy Truth from Falsehood born!
Of Heaven refreshed
by airs from Hell!
Of Virtue in the arms of Vice!
Of Demons
planting Paradise!
Rail on, then, brethren of the South,
Ye shall not hear the truth the
less;
No seal is on the Yankee's mouth,
No fetter on the Yankee's
press!
From our Green Mountains to the sea,
One voice shall
thunder, We are free!
CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.
In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, S.C.,
on the 4th of the ninth month, 1835, published in the Courier of that
city, it is stated: "The clergy of all denominations attended in a body,
lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding by their presence
to the impressive character of the scene!"
JUST God! and these are they
Who minister at thine altar, God of
Right!
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay
On
Israel's Ark of light!

What! preach, and kidnap men?
Give thanks, and rob thy own
afflicted poor?
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the
captive's door?
What! servants of thy own
Merciful Son, who came to seek and save

The homeless and the outcast, fettering down
The tasked and
plundered slave!
Pilate and Herod, friends!
Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!

Just God and holy! is that church, which lends
Strength to the
spoiler, thine?
Paid hypocrites, who turn
Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book

Of those high words of truth which search and burn
In warning and
rebuke;
Feed fat, ye locusts, feed!
And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the
Lord
That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,
Ye pile your own
full board.
How long, O Lord! how long
Shall such a priesthood barter truth
away,
And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong
At Thy own altars
pray?
Is not Thy hand stretched forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and
smite?
Shall not the living God of all the earth,
And heaven above,
do right?
Woe, then, to all who grind
Their brethren of a common Father down!

To all who plunder from the immortal mind
Its bright and glorious
crown!
Woe to the priesthood! woe
To those whose hire is with the price of
blood;
Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go,
The searching
truths of God!

Their glory and their might
Shall perish; and their very names shall
be
Vile before all the people, in the light
Of a world's liberty.
Oh, speed the moment on
When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and
Love
And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known
As in
their home above.
1836.
A SUMMONS
Written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions in the House of
Representatives, and the passage of Calhoun's "Bill for excluding
Papers written or printed, touching the subject of Slavery, from the U.
S. Post-office," in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Pinckney's
resolutions were in brief that Congress had no authority to interfere in
any way with slavery in the States; that it ought not to interfere with it
in the District of Columbia, and that all resolutions to that end should
be laid on the table without printing. Mr. Calhoun's bill made it a penal
offence for post-masters in any State, District, or Territory "knowingly
to deliver, to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill,
or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject
of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, District, or Territory,
their circulation was prohibited."
MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit
Of the true-hearted
and the unshackled gone?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit

Their names alone?
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us,
Stoops the strong
manhood of our souls so low,
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile
can win us
To silence now?
Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging,
In God's name, let us
speak while there is time!
Now, when the padlocks for our lips are
forging,
Silence is crime!
What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors
Rights all our own?

In madness shall we barter,
For treacherous peace, the freedom
Nature gave us,
God and our charter?
Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters,
Here the false jurist
human rights deny,
And in the church, their proud and skilled
abettors
Make truth a lie?
Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible,
To sanction crime, and
robbery, and blood?
And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel
Both