Anti-Slavery Poems III. - From Volume III., the Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery - Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 57 of 70 (81%)
page 57 of 70 (81%)
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Points to the footmarks of indignant scorn,
Shows the deep scars of satire's tossing horn; And passes to his credit side the sum Of all that makes a scoundrel's martyrdom! "Bane of the North, its canker and its moth! These modern Esaus, bartering rights for broth! Taxing our justice, with their double claim, As fools for pity, and as knaves for blame; Who, urged by party, sect, or trade, within The fell embrace of Slavery's sphere of sin, Part at the outset with their moral sense, The watchful angel set for Truth's defence; Confound all contrasts, good and ill; reverse The poles of life, its blessing and its curse; And lose thenceforth from their perverted sight The eternal difference 'twixt the wrong and right; To them the Law is but the iron span That girds the ankles of imbruted man; To them the Gospel has no higher aim Than simple sanction of the master's claim, Dragged in the slime of Slavery's loathsome trail, Like Chalier's Bible at his ass's tail! "Such are the men who, with instinctive dread, Whenever Freedom lifts her drooping head, Make prophet-tripods of their office-stools, And scare the nurseries and the village schools With dire presage of ruin grim and great, A broken Union and a foundered State! |
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