Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Anti-Slavery Poems

After the War
The Emancipation Group

Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate of the Freedman’s Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington. The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The group was designed by Thomas Ball, and was unveiled December 9, 1879. These verses were written for the occasion.

AMIDST thy sacred effigies

Of old renown give place,

O city, Freedom-loved! to his

Whose hand unchained a race.

Take the worn frame, that rested not

Save in a martyr’s grave;

The care-lined face, that none forgot,

Bent to the kneeling slave.

Let man be free! The mighty word

He spake was not his own;

An impulse from the Highest stirred

These chiselled lips alone.

The cloudy sign, the fiery guide,

Along his pathway ran,

And Nature, through his voice, denied

The ownership of man.

We rest in peace where these sad eyes

Saw peril, strife, and pain;

His was the nation’s sacrifice,

And ours the priceless gain.

O symbol of God’s will on earth

As it is done above!

Bear witness to the cost and worth

Of justice and of love.

Stand in thy place and testify

To coming ages long,

That truth is stronger than a lie,

And righteousness than wrong.