John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Anti-Slavery PoemsIn War Time
Astræa at the Capitol
W
Above the nation’s council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave!
And saw the Christian mother sold,
And childhood with its locks of gold,
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
And, smothering down the wrath and shame
That set my Northern blood aflame,
Stood silent,—where to speak was death.
Where wasted one in slow decline
For uttering simple words of mine,
And loving freedom all too well.
Flapped menace in the morning air;
I stood a perilled stranger where
The human broker made his home.
And Law their threefold sanction gave,
And to the quarry of the slave
Went hawking with our symbol-bird.
And yet I knew that every wrong,
However old, however strong,
But waited God’s avenging hour.
Somehow, some time, the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.
A free flag floats from yonder dome,
And at the nation’s hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.
The message of deliverance comes,
But heralded by roll of drums
On waves of battle-troubled air!
The song that Bethlehem’s shepherds knew!
The harp of David melting through
The demon-agonies of Saul!
Above our broken dreams and plans
God lays, with wiser hand than man’s,
The corner-stones of liberty.
That freedom’s blessed gospel tells
Is sweet to me as silver bells,
Rejoicing! yea, I will rejoice!
Ye dearer ones who, gone before,
Are watching from the eternal shore
The slow work by your hands begun,
Blossoms with love; the furnace heat
Grows cool beneath His blessed feet
Whose form is as the Son of God!
Are sweetened; on our ground of grief
Rise day by day in strong relief
The prophecies of better things.
Are one with God, and one with them
Who see by faith the cloudy hem
Of Judgment fringed with Mercy’s light!