Who doubts Antonelli? Have miracles ceasedWhen robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest?When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board,The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword,When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head,And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead!There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed wayThat they did when they rang for Bartholomew's day.Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys,Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise.Te Deum laudamus! All round without stintThe incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't!And now for the blessing! Of little account,You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount.Its giver was landless, His raiment was poor,No jewelled tiara His fishermen wore;No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home,No Swiss guards! We order things better at Rome.So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak;Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak;Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again,With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain;Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban;For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!1858.
ACROSS the sea I heard the groansOf nations in the intervalsOf wind and wave. Their blood and bonesCried out in torture, crushed by thrones,And sucked by priestly cannibals.I dreamed of Freedom slowly gainedBy martyr meekness, patience, faith,And lo! an athlete grimly stained,With corded muscles battle-strained,Shouting it from the fields of death!I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight,Among the clamoring thousands mute,I only know that God is right,And that the children of the lightShall tread the darkness under foot.I know the pent fire heaves its crust,That sultry skies the bolt will formTo smite them clear; that Nature mustThe balance of her powers adjust,Though with the earthquake and the storm.God reigns, and let the earth rejoice!I bow before His sterner plan.Dumb are the organs of my choice;He speaks in battle's stormy voice,His praise is in the wrath of man!Yet, surely as He lives, the dayOf peace He promised shall be ours,To fold the flags of war, and layIts sword and spear to rust away,And sow its ghastly fields with flowers!1860.
WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forthIn blue Brazilian skies;And thou, O river, cleaving half the earthFrom sunset to sunrise,From the great mountains to the Atlantic wavesThy joy's long anthem pour.Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slavesShall shame thy pride no more.No fettered feet thy shaded margins press;But all men shall walk freeWhere thou, the high-priest of the wilderness,Hast wedded sea to sea.And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouthThe word of God is said,Once more, "Let there be light!"—Son of the South,Lift up thy honored head,Wear unashamed a crown by thy desertMore than by birth thy own,Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirtBy grateful hearts alone.The moated wall and battle-ship may fail,But safe shall justice prove;Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mailThe panoply of love.Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace,Thy future is secure;Who frees a people makes his statue's placeIn Time's Valhalla sure.Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian CzarStretches to thee his hand,Who, with the pencil of the Northern star,Wrote freedom on his land.And he whose grave is holy by our calmAnd prairied Sangamon,From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palmTo greet thee with "Well done!"And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet,And let thy wail be stilled,To hear the Muse of prophecy repeatHer promise half fulfilled.The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still,No sound thereof hath died;Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal willShall yet be satisfied.The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long,And far the end may be;But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrongGo out and leave thee free.1867.
THE day's sharp strife is ended now,Our work is done, God knoweth how!As on the thronged, unrestful townThe patience of the moon looks down,I wait to hear, beside the wire,The voices of its tongues of fire.Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at firstBe strong, my heart, to know the worst!Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke;That sound from lake and prairie broke,That sunset-gun of triumph rentThe silence of a continent!That signal from Nebraska sprung,This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!Is that thy answer, strong and free,O loyal heart of Tennessee?What strange, glad voice is that which callsFrom Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?From Mississippi's fountain-headA sound as of the bison's tread!There rustled freedom's Charter OakIn that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!Cheer answers cheer from rise to setOf sun. We have a country yet!The praise, O God, be thine alone!Thou givest not for bread a stone;Thou hast not led us through the nightTo blind us with returning light;Not through the furnace have we passed,To perish at its mouth at last.O night of peace, thy flight restrain!November's moon, be slow to wane!Shine on the freedman's cabin floor,On brows of prayer a blessing pour;And give, with full assurance blest,The weary heart of Freedom rest!1868.
"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once moreSpeaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar,O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reapedAnd left dry ashes; over trenches heapedWith nameless dead; o'er cities starving slowUnder a rain of fire; through wards of woeDown which a groaning diapason runsFrom tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sonsOf desolate women in their far-off homes,Waiting to hear the step that never comes!O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!Fear not the end. There is a story toldIn Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold,And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sitWith grave responses listening unto itOnce, on the errands of his mercy bent,Buddha, the holy and benevolent,Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look,Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook."O son of peace!" the giant cried, "thy fateIs sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate."The unarmed Buddha looking, with no traceOf fear or anger, in the monster's face,In pity said: "Poor fiend, even thee I love."Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sankTo hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrankInto the form and fashion of a dove;And where the thunder of its rage was heard,Circling above him sweetly sang the bird"Hate hath no harm for love," so ran the song;"And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!"1871.
I.NOT without envy Wealth at times must lookOn their brown strength who wield the reaping-hookAnd scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the ploughOr the steel harness of the steeds of steam;All who, by skill and patience, anyhowMake service noble, and the earth redeemFrom savageness. By kingly accoladeThan theirs was never worthier knighthood made.Well for them, if, while demagogues their vainAnd evil counsels proffer, they maintainTheir honest manhood unseduced, and wageNo war with Labor's right to Labor's gainOf sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain,And softer pillow for the head of Age.II.And well for Gain if it ungrudging yieldsLabor its just demand; and well for EaseIf in the uses of its own, it seesNo wrong to him who tills its pleasant fieldsAnd spreads the table of its luxuries.The interests of the rich man and the poorAre one and same, inseparable evermore;And, when scant wage or labor fail to giveFood, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live,Need has its rights, necessity its claim.Yea, even self-wrought misery and shameTest well the charity suffering long and kind.The home-pressed question of the age can findNo answer in the catch-words of the blindLeaders of blind. Solution there is noneSave in the Golden Rule of Christ alone.1877.
WE give thy natal day to hope,O Country of our love and prayer IThy way is down no fatal slope,But up to freer sun and air.Tried as by furnace-fires, and yetBy God's grace only stronger made,In future tasks before thee setThou shalt not lack the old-time aid.The fathers sleep, but men remainAs wise, as true, and brave as they;Why count the loss and not the gain?The best is that we have to-day.Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime,Within thy mighty bounds transpires,With speed defying space and timeComes to us on the accusing wires;While of thy wealth of noble deeds,Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold,The love that pleads for human needs,The wrong redressed, but half is told!We read each felon's chronicle,His acts, his words, his gallows-mood;We know the single sinner wellAnd not the nine and ninety good.Yet if, on daily scandals fed,We seem at times to doubt thy worth,We know thee still, when all is said,The best and dearest spot on earth.From the warm Mexic Gulf, or whereBelted with flowers Los AngelesBasks in the semi-tropic air,To where Katahdin's cedar treesAre dwarfed and bent by Northern winds,Thy plenty's horn is yearly filled;Alone, the rounding century findsThy liberal soil by free hands tilled.A refuge for the wronged and poor,Thy generous heart has borne the blameThat, with them, through thy open door,The old world's evil outcasts came.But, with thy just and equal rule,And labor's need and breadth of lands,Free press and rostrum, church and school,Thy sure, if slow, transforming handsShall mould even them to thy design,Making a blessing of the ban;And Freedom's chemistry combineThe alien elements of man.The power that broke their prison barAnd set the dusky millions free,And welded in the flame of warThe Union fast to Liberty,Shall it not deal with other ills,Redress the red man's grievance, breakThe Circean cup which shames and kills,And Labor full requital make?Alone to such as fitly bearThy civic honors bid them fall?And call thy daughters forth to shareThe rights and duties pledged to all?Give every child his right of school,Merge private greed in public good,And spare a treasury overfullThe tax upon a poor man's food?No lack was in thy primal stock,No weakling founders builded here;Thine were the men of Plymouth Rock,The Huguenot and Cavalier;And they whose firm endurance gainedThe freedom of the souls of men,Whose hands, unstained with blood, maintainedThe swordless commonwealth of Penn.And thine shall be the power of allTo do the work which duty bids,And make the people's council hallAs lasting as the Pyramids!Well have thy later years made goodThy brave-said word a century back,The pledge of human brotherhood,The equal claim of white and black.That word still echoes round the world,And all who hear it turn to thee,And read upon thy flag unfurledThe prophecies of destiny.Thy great world-lesson all shall learn,The nations in thy school shall sit,Earth's farthest mountain-tops shall burnWith watch-fires from thy own uplit.Great without seeking to be greatBy fraud or conquest, rich in gold,But richer in the large estateOf virtue which thy children hold,With peace that comes of purityAnd strength to simple justice due,So runs our loyal dream of thee;God of our fathers! make it true.O Land of lands! to thee we giveOur prayers, our hopes, our service free;For thee thy sons shall nobly live,And at thy need shall die for thee!
In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custer and his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one of the fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow's poem on the massacre, these lines will be remembered:—
"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,"Revenge upon all the raceOf the White Chief with yellow hair!"And the mountains dark and highFrom their crags reechoed the cryOf his anger and despair.
He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, September 28, 1886: "Rain-in-the-Face is very anxious to go to Hampton. I fear he is too old, but he desires very much to go." The Southern Workman, the organ of General Armstrong's Industrial School at Hampton, Va., says in a late number:—
"Rain-in-the-Face has applied before to come to Hampton, but his age would exclude him from the school as an ordinary student. He has shown himself very much in earnest about it, and is anxious, all say, to learn the better ways of life. It is as unusual as it is striking to see a man of his age, and one who has had such an experience, willing to give up the old way, and put himself in the position of a boy and a student."
THE years are but half a score,And the war-whoop sounds no moreWith the blast of bugles, whereStraight into a slaughter pen,With his doomed three hundred men,Rode the chief with the yellow hair.O Hampton, down by the sea!What voice is beseeching theeFor the scholar's lowliest place?Can this be the voice of himWho fought on the Big Horn's rim?Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?His war-paint is washed away,His hands have forgotten to slay;He seeks for himself and his raceThe arts of peace and the loreThat give to the skilled hand moreThan the spoils of war and chase.O chief of the Christ-like school!Can the zeal of thy heart grow coolWhen the victor scarred with fightLike a child for thy guidance craves,And the faces of hunters and bravesAre turning to thee for light?The hatchet lies overgrownWith grass by the Yellowstone,Wind River and Paw of Bear;And, in sign that foes are friends,Each lodge like a peace-pipe sendsIts smoke in the quiet air.The hands that have done the wrongTo right the wronged are strong,And the voice of a nation saith"Enough of the war of swords,Enough of the lying wordsAnd shame of a broken faith!"The hills that have watched afarThe valleys ablaze with warShall look on the tasselled corn;And the dust of the grinded grain,Instead of the blood of the slain,Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!The Ute and the wandering CrowShall know as the white men know,And fare as the white men fare;The pale and the red shall be brothers,One's rights shall be as another's,Home, School, and House of Prayer!O mountains that climb to snow,O river winding below,Through meadows by war once trod,O wild, waste lands that awaitThe harvest exceeding great,Break forth into praise of God!1887.
Note 1, page 18. The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, during his confinement in France.
"Toussaint!—thou most unhappy man of menWhether the whistling rustic tends his ploughWithin thy hearing, or thou liest nowBuried in some deep dungeon's earless den;O miserable chieftain!—where and whenWilt thou find patience?—Yet, die not, do thouWear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow;Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behindPowers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,—There's not a breathing of the common windThat will forget thee; thou hast great allies.Thy friends are exultations, agonies,And love, and man's unconquerable mind."
Note 2, page 67. The Northern author of the Congressional rule against receiving petitions of the people on the subject of Slavery.
Note 3, page 88. There was at the time when this poem was written an Association in Liberty County, Georgia, for the religious instruction of negroes. One of their annual reports contains an address by the Rev. Josiah Spry Law, in which the following passage occurs: "There is a growing interest in this community in the religious instruction of negroes. There is a conviction that religious instruction promotes the quiet and order of the people, and the pecuniary interest of the owners."
Note 4, page 117. The book-establishment of the Free-Will Baptists in Dover was refused the act of incorporation by the New Hampshire Legislature, for the reason that the newspaper organ of that sect and its leading preachers favored abolition.
Note 5, page 118. The senatorial editor of the Belknap Gazette all along manifested a peculiar horror of "niggers" and "nigger parties."
Note 6, page 118. The justice before whom Elder Storrs was brought for preaching abolition on a writ drawn by Hon. M. N., Jr., of Pittsfield. The sheriff served the writ while the elder was praying.
Note 7, page 118. The academy at Canaan, N. H., received one or two colored scholars, and was in consequence dragged off into a swamp by Democratic teams.
Note 8, page 119. "Papers and memorials touching the subject of slavery shall be laid on the table without reading, debate, or reference." So read the gag-law, as it was called, introduced in the House by Mr. Atherton.
Note 9, page 120. The Female Anti-Slavery Society, at its first meeting in Concord, was assailed with stones and brickbats.
Note 10, page 168. The election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate "followed hard upon" the rendition of the fugitive Sims by the United States officials and the armed police of Boston.
Note 11, page 290. For the idea of this line, I am indebted to Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to the Rhodora,—
"If eyes were made for seeing,Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."