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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=391848" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Then and Now</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Build me a nation,&quot; said the Lord. <br>The distant nations heard the word, <br>Build me a nation true and strong, <br>Bar out the old world's hate and wrong; <br>For men had traced with blood and tears <br>The trail of weary wasting years, <br>And torn and bleeding martyrs trod <br>Through fire and torture up to God. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">While in the hollow of his hand <br>God hid the secret of our land, <br>Men warred against their fiercest foes, <br>And kingdoms fell and empires rose, <br>Till, weary of the old world strife, <br>Men sought for broader, freer life, <br>And plunged into the ocean's foam <br>To find another, better home. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, like a vision fair and bright <br>The new world broke upon their sight. <br>Men grasped the prize, grew proud and strong, <br>And cursed the land with crime and wrong. <br>The Indian stood despoiled of lands, <br>The Negro bound with servile bands, <br>Oppressed through weary years of toil, <br>His blood and tears bedewed the soil. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then God arose in dreadful wrath, <br>And judgment streamed around his path; <br>His hand the captive's fetters broke, <br>His lightnings shattered every yoke. <br>As Israel through the Red sea trod, <br>Led by the mighty hand of God, <br>They passed to freedom through a flood, <br>Whose every wave and surge was blood. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And slavery, with its crime and shame, <br>Went down in wrath and blood and flame <br>The land was billowed-o'er with graves <br>Where men had lived and died as slaves. <br>Four and thirty years -- what change since <br>then! <br>Beings once chattles now are men; <br>Over the gloom of slavery's night, <br>Has flashed the dawn of freedom's light. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">To-day no mother with anguish wild <br>Kneels and implores that her darling child <br>Shall not be torn from her bleeding heart, <br>With its quivering tendrils rent apart. <br>The father may soothe his child to sleep, <br>And watch his slumbers calm and deep. <br>No tyrant's tread will disturb his rest <br>Where freedom dwells as a welcome guest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His walls may be bare of pictured grace, <br>His fireside the lowliest place; <br>But the wife and children sheltered there <br>Are his to defend and guard with care. <br>Where haughty tyrants once bore rule <br>Are ballot-box and public school. <br>The old slave-pen of former days <br>Gives place to fanes of prayer and praise. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">To-night we would bring our meed of praise <br>To noble friends of darker days; <br>The men and women crowned with light, <br>The true and tried in our gloomy night. <br>To Lundy, whose heart was early stirred <br>To speak for freedom an earnest word; <br>To Garrison, valiant, true and strong, <br>Whose face was as flint against our wrong. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Phillips, the peerless, grand and brave, <br>A tower of strength to the outcast slave. <br>Earth has no marble too pure and white <br>To enrol his name in golden light. <br>Our Douglass, too, with his massive brain, <br>Who plead our cause with his broken chain, <br>And helped to hurl from his bloody seat <br>The curse that writhed and died at his feet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Governor Andrew, who, looking back, <br>Saw none he despised, though poor and black; <br>And Harriet Beecher, whose glowing pen <br>Corroded the chains of fettered men. <br>To-night with greenest laurels we'll crown <br>North Elba's grave where sleeps John Brown, <br>Who made the gallows an altar high, <br>And showed how a brave old man could die. <br>And Lincoln, our martyred President, <br>Who returned to his God with chains he had rent.* <br>And Sumner, amid death's icy chill, <br>Leaving to Hoar his Civil Rights Bill. <br>And let us remember old underground, <br>With all her passengers northward bound, <br>The train that ran till it ceased to pay, <br>With all her dividends given away. <br>Nor let it be said that we have forgot <br>The women who stood with Lucretia Mott; <br>Nor her who to the world was known <br>By the simple name of Lucy stone. <br>A tribute unto a host of others <br>Who knew that men though black were brothers, <br>Who battled against our nation's sin, <br>Whose graves are thick whose ranks are thin. <br>Oh, people chastened in the fire, <br>To nobler, grander things aspire; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the new era of your life, <br>Bring love for hate, and peace for strife; <br>Upon your hearts this vow record <br>That ye will build unto the Lord <br>A nobler future, true and grand, <br>To strengthen, crown and bless the land. <br>A higher freedom ye may gain <br>Than that which comes from a riven chain; <br>Freedom your native land to bless <br>With peace, and love and righteousness, <br>As dreams that are past, a tale all told, <br>Are the days when men were bought and sold; <br>Now God be praised from sea to sea, <br>Our flag floats o'er a country free.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Frances+Ellen+Watkins+Harper">Frances Ellen Watkins Harper</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=391848" data-title="Then and Now de Frances Ellen Watkins Harper" data-description="&quot;Build me a nation,&quot; said the Lord. 
The distant nations heard the word, 
Build me a nation true and strong, 
Bar out the old world's hate and wrong; 
For men had traced with blood and tears 
The trail of weary wasting years, 
And torn a..."></div>
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