Anti-Slavery, Labor and Reform, Complete - From Volume III., the Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery - Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 51 of 419 (12%)
page 51 of 419 (12%)
|
Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen;
Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went forth To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of Earth; Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst; Where first for the wronged and the weak of their kind, The Christian and statesman their efforts combined; Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain? Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain? No, Ritner! her "Friends" at thy warning shall stand Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band; Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime; Turning back front the cavil of creeds, to unite Once again for the poor in defence of the Right; Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong, Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along; Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain, And counting each trial for Truth as their gain! And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true, Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due; Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine, On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine,-- The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to brave The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave; Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South One brow for the brand, for the padlock one mouth? They cater to tyrants? They rivet the chain, |
|