Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 9

man and God?
Shall our New England stand erect no longer,
But stoop in chains
upon her downward way,
Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger

Day after day?
Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains;
From valleys
where her slumbering fathers lie;
From her blue rivers and her
welling fountains,
And clear, cold sky;
From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean
Gnaws with his
surges; from the fisher's skiff,
With white sail swaying to the billows'
motion
Round rock and cliff;
From the free fireside of her untought farmer;
From her free laborer
at his loom and wheel;
From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath
the hammer,
Rings the red steel;
From each and all, if God hath not forsaken
Our land, and left us to
an evil choice,
Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken
A
People's voice.
Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it
Over Potomac's
to St. Mary's wave;
And buried Freedom shall awake 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