Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Texas
By John Greenleaf Whittier (18071892)U
Rouse the sleeping citizen;
Summon out the might of men!
Like a night-storm rising slow,—
Like the tread of unseen foe,—
Stand your homes and altars by;
On your own free thresholds die.
On the gray hills of your sires
Fling to heaven your signal-fires.
Unto Berkshire’s tallest peak,
Let the flame-tongued heralds speak.
Heart to heart and hand to hand,
Round the old graves of the land.
Whoso to the yoke would bow,
Brand the craven on his brow!
For a free and fearless race,—
None for traitors false and base.
Strike together while ye can,
Like the arm of one strong man.
Heard above a world of crime,
Crying of the end of time,—
Let the North unto the South
Speak the word befitting both:
Ye may load his back with wrong
Overmuch and over long;
With her weary thread outspun,
Murmurs that her work is done.
Weak as tow in Freedom’s strain
Link by link shall snap in twain.
Bind the starry cluster up,
Shattered over heaven’s blue cope!
Rather than eternal haze,
Clouding o’er the full-orbed blaze.
Only leave to Freedom room
For her plough and forge and loom;
Leave us but our own free gales,
Blowing on our thousand sails.
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart;
Break the Union’s mighty heart;
Pluck upon your heads an ill
Which shall grow and deepen still.
With his heart of black despair,
Stand alone, if stand ye dare!
Dig the gulf and draw the line:
Fire beneath your feet the mine:
Yawns between your land and this,
Shall ye feel your helplessness.
Shaken by a look or tread,
Ye shall own a guilty dread.
Downward through your generous soil
Like a fire shall burn and spoil.
Vines our rocks shall overgrow,
Plenty in our valleys flow;—
Hither shall ye turn your eyes,
As the lost on Paradise!
Freedom’s true and brother band,
Freedom’s strong and honest hand,—
And the Pilgrim’s mountain sod,
Blessed of our fathers’ God!”