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Home  »  The Poetical Works In Four Volumes  »  In War Time
Astræa at the Capitol

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

Anti-Slavery Poems

In War Time
Astræa at the Capitol

Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, 1862

WHEN first I saw our banner wave

Above the nation’s council-hall,

I heard beneath its marble wall

The clanking fetters of the slave!

In the foul market-place I stood,

And saw the Christian mother sold,

And childhood with its locks of gold,

Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.

I shut my eyes, I held my breath,

And, smothering down the wrath and shame

That set my Northern blood aflame,

Stood silent,—where to speak was death.

Beside me gloomed the prison-cell

Where wasted one in slow decline

For uttering simple words of mine,

And loving freedom all too well.

The flag that floated from the dome

Flapped menace in the morning air;

I stood a perilled stranger where

The human broker made his home.

For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword

And Law their threefold sanction gave,

And to the quarry of the slave

Went hawking with our symbol-bird.

On the oppressor’s side was power;

And yet I knew that every wrong,

However old, however strong,

But waited God’s avenging hour.

I knew that truth would crush the lie,—

Somehow, some time, the end would be;

Yet scarcely dared I hope to see

The triumph with my mortal eye.

But now I see it! In the sun

A free flag floats from yonder dome,

And at the nation’s hearth and home

The justice long delayed is done.

Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer,

The message of deliverance comes,

But heralded by roll of drums

On waves of battle-troubled air!

Midst sounds that madden and appall,

The song that Bethlehem’s shepherds knew!

The harp of David melting through

The demon-agonies of Saul!

Not as we hoped; but what are we?

Above our broken dreams and plans

God lays, with wiser hand than man’s,

The corner-stones of liberty.

I cavil not with Him: the voice

That freedom’s blessed gospel tells

Is sweet to me as silver bells,

Rejoicing! yea, I will rejoice!

Dear friends still toiling in the sun;

Ye dearer ones who, gone before,

Are watching from the eternal shore

The slow work by your hands begun,

Rejoice with me! The chastening rod

Blossoms with love; the furnace heat

Grows cool beneath His blessed feet

Whose form is as the Son of God!

Rejoice! Our Marah’s bitter springs

Are sweetened; on our ground of grief

Rise day by day in strong relief

The prophecies of better things.

Rejoice in hope! The day and night

Are one with God, and one with them

Who see by faith the cloudy hem

Of Judgment fringed with Mercy’s light!

1862.