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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420514" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>How The Women Went From Dover</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall<br>Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,<br>As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,<br>Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip<br>And keener sting of the constable's whip,<br>The blood that followed each hissing blow<br>Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Priest and ruler, boy and maid<br>Followed the dismal cavalcade;<br>And from door and window, open thrown,<br>Looked and wondered gaffer and crone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'God is our witness,' the victims cried,<br>We suffer for Him who for all men died;<br>The wrong ye do has been done before,<br>We bear the stripes that the Master bore!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom<br>We hear the feet of a coming doom,<br>On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong<br>Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'In the light of the Lord, a flame we see<br>Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree;<br>And beneath it an old man lying dead,<br>With stains of blood on his hoary head.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil!--harder still!'<br>The magistrate cried, 'lay on with a will!<br>Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies,<br>Who through them preaches and prophesies!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So into the forest they held their way,<br>By winding river and frost-rimmed bay,<br>Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat<br>Of the winter sea at their icy feet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Indian hunter, searching his traps,<br>Peered stealthily through the forest gaps;<br>And the outlying settler shook his head,--<br>'They're witches going to jail,' he said.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At last a meeting-house came in view;<br>A blast on his horn the constable blew;<br>And the boys of Hampton cried up and down,<br>'The Quakers have come!' to the wondering town.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From barn and woodpile the goodman came;<br>The goodwife quitted her quilting frame,<br>With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,<br>The grandam followed to see the show.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once more the torturing whip was swung,<br>Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.<br>'Oh, spare! they are bleeding!'' a little maid cried,<br>And covered her face the sight to hide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A murmur ran round the crowd: 'Good folks,'<br>Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes,<br>'No pity to wretches like these is due,<br>They have beaten the gospel black and blue!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear,<br>With her wooden noggin of milk drew near.<br>'Drink, poor hearts!' a rude hand smote<br>Her draught away from a parching throat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Take heed,' one whispered, 'they'll take your cow<br>For fines, as they took your horse and plough,<br>And the bed from under you.' 'Even so,'<br>She said; 'they are cruel as death, I know.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then on they passed, in the waning day,<br>Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way;<br>By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,<br>And glimpses of blue sea here and there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By the meeting-house in Salisbury town,<br>The sufferers stood, in the red sundown,<br>Bare for the lash! O pitying Night,<br>Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip<br>The Salisbury constable dropped his whip.<br>'This warrant means murder foul and red;<br>Cursed is he who serves it,' he said.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Show me the order, and meanwhile strike<br>A blow at your peril!' said Justice Pike.<br>Of all the rulers the land possessed,<br>Wisest and boldest was he and best.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He scoffed at witchcraft; the priest he met<br>As man meets man; his feet he set<br>Beyond his dark age, standing upright,<br>Soul-free, with his face to the morning light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He read the warrant: 'These convey<br>From our precincts; at every town on the way<br>Give each ten lashes.' 'God judge the brute!<br>I tread his order under my foot!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;<br>Come what will of it, all men shall know<br>No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,<br>For whipping women in Salisbury town!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The hearts of the villagers, half released<br>From creed of terror and rule of priest,<br>By a primal instinct owned the right<br>Of human pity in law's despite.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For ruth and chivalry only slept,<br>His Saxon manhood the yeoman kept;<br>Quicker or slower, the same blood ran<br>In the Cavalier and the Puritan.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Quakers sank on their knees in praise<br>And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze<br>Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed<br>A golden glory on each bowed head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The tale is one of an evil time,<br>When souls were fettered and thought was crime,<br>And heresy's whisper above its breath<br>Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried,<br>Even woman rebuked and prophesied,<br>And soft words rarely answered back<br>The grim persuasion of whip and rack.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If her cry from the whipping-post and jail<br>Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail,<br>O woman, at ease in these happier days,<br>Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How much thy beautiful life may owe<br>To her faith and courage thou canst not know,<br>Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat<br>She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</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=420514" data-title="How The Women Went From Dover de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall
Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,
Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!

Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip
And keener sting of the constable's wh..."></div>
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