That hellish foes confederate for his harm
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field
Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valley his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, "My Father made them all!"
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eyes they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love That planned and built, and still upholds, a world
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man?
Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good
In senseless riot; but ye will not find
In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeached
Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his Father's work,
And has a richer use of yours than you.
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth
Of no mean city, planned or e'er the hills
Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea
With all his roaring multitude of waves.
His freedom is the same in every state;
And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose every day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less.
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury can cripple or confine;
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds
His body bound; but knows not what a range
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain;
And that to bind him is a vain attempt,
Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells.
FROM gold to gray
Our mild sweet day
Of Indian summer fades too soon;
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.
In its pale fire,
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance:
The painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfigured stand in marble trance !
O'er fallen leaves
The west-wind grieves,
Yet comes a seed-time round again; And morn shall see
The State sown free With baleful tares or healthful grain.
Along the street
The shadows meet
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The molds of fate
That shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal.
Around I sec
The powers chat be;
I stand by Empire's primal springs; And princes meet
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!
Hark! through the crowd
The laugh runs loud,
Beneath the sad, rebuking moon.
God save the land
A careless hand
May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!
No jest is this;
One cast amiss
May blast the hope of Freedom's year.
O, take me where
Are hearts of prayer,
And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!
Not lightly fall Beyond recall
The written scrolls a breath can float;
The crowning fact
The kingliest act
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!
The diver in the deep sea dies;
The regal right
We boast to-night
Is ours through costlier sacrifice;
The blood of Vane,
His prison pain
Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole,
And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes. It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to vale It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers; It visits home to hear the fireside tale
And in sweet converse pass the joyous hours; 'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar, And in its watches wearies every star.
THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.
HERE are old trees, tall oaks and gnarlèd pines, That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and
winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set
With pale blue berries. In these peaceful
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old -
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of liberty.
O FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves.
A bearded man,
Ármed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy
brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs
Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has
launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee; They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,
And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,
Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.
Thy birthright was not given by human hands:
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrow on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.
Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of
But he shall fade into a feebler age;
Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His withered hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send
Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread
on thread
That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms
With chains concealed in chaplets. O, not yet
Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst
Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men,
These old and friendly solitudes invite
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.
[On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery.]
Clang of bell and roar of gun Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel ! How the great guns, peal on peal, Fling the joy from town to town!
Ring, O bells! Every stroke exulting tells Of the burial hour of crime.
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps :
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel :
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal ;
Let the Hero, born of woinan, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No; dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home. Then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall That parts us are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs He is sifting out the hearts of men before his Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
O, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud my feet!
FROM "THE TIMEPIECE."
O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick, with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdúrate heart;
It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax,
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colored like his own, and, having power
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
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