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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420608" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Pennsylvania Hall</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">NOT with the splendors of the days of old,<br>The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold;<br>No weapons wrested from the fields of blood,<br>Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood,<br>And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw<br>A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law;<br>Nor blazoned car, nor banners floating gay,<br>Like those which swept along the Appian Way,<br>When, to the welcome of imperial Rome,<br>The victor warrior came in triumph home,<br>And trumpet peal, and shoutings wild and high,<br>Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian sky;<br>But calm and grateful, prayerful and sincere,<br>As Christian freemen only, gathering here,<br>We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall,<br>Pillar and arch, entablature and wall,<br>As Virtue's shrine, as Liberty's abode,<br>Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God!<br>Far statelier Halls, 'neath brighter skies than these,<br>Stood darkly mirrored in the Ægean seas,<br>Pillar and shrine, and life-like statues seen,<br>Graceful and pure, the marble shafts between;<br>Where glorious Athens from her rocky hill<br>Saw Art and Beauty subject to her will;<br>And the chaste temple, and the classic grove,<br>The hall of sages, and the bowers of love,<br>Arch, fane, and column, graced the shores, and gave<br>Their shadows to the blue Saronic wave;<br>And statelier rose, on Tiber's winding side,<br>The Pantheon's dome, the Coliseum's pride,<br>The Capitol, whose arches backward flung<br>The deep, clear cadence of the Roman tongue,<br>Whence stern decrees, like words of fate, went forth<br>To the awed nations of a conquered earth,<br>Where the proud Caesars in their glory came,<br>And Brutus lightened from his lips of flame!<br>Yet in tire porches of Athena's halls,<br>And in the shadow of her stately walls,<br>Lurked the sad bondman, and his tears of woe<br>Wet the cold marble with unheeded flow;<br>And fetters clanked beneath the silver dome<br>Of the proud Pantheon of imperious Rome.<br>Oh, not for him, the chained and stricken slave,<br>By Tiber's shore, or blue Ægina's wave,<br>In the thronged forum, or the sages' seat,<br>The bold lip pleaded, and the warm heart beat;<br>No soul of sorrow melted at his pain,<br>No tear of pity rusted on his chain!<br>But this fair Hall to Truth and Freedom given,<br>Pledged to the Right before all Earth and Heaven,<br>A free arena for the strife of mind,<br>To caste, or sect, or color unconfined,<br>Shall thrill with echoes such as ne'er of old<br>From Roman hall or Grecian temple rolled;<br>Thoughts shall find utterance such as never yet<br>The Propylea or the Forum met.<br>Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife<br>Shall win applauses with the waste of life;<br>No lordly lictor urge the barbarous game,<br>No wanton Lais glory in her shame.<br>But here the tear of sympathy shall flow,<br>As the ear listens to the tale of woe;<br>Here in stern judgment of the oppressor's wrong<br>Shall strong rebukings thrill on Freedom's tongue,<br>No partial justice hold th' unequal scale,<br>No pride of caste a brother's rights assail,<br>No tyrant's mandates echo from this wall,<br>Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All!<br>But a fair field, where mind may close with mind,<br>Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind;<br>Where the high trust is fixed on Truth alone,<br>And bonds and fetters from the soul are thrown;<br>Where wealth, and rank, and worldly pomp, and might,<br>Yield to the presence of the True and Right.<br>And fitting is it that this Hall should stand<br>Where Pennsylvania's Founder led his band,.<br>From thy blue waters, Delaware!— to press<br>The virgin verdure of the wilderness.<br>Here, where all Europe with amazement saw<br>The soul's high freedom trammelled by no law;<br>Here, where the fierce and warlike forest-men<br>Gathered, in peace, around the home of Penn,<br>Awed by the weapons Love alone had given<br>Drawn from the holy armory of Heaven;<br>Where Nature's voice against the bondman's wrong<br>First found an earnest and indignant tongue;<br>Where Lay's bold message to the proud was borne;<br>And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's manly scorn!<br>Fitting it is that here, where Freedom first<br>From her fair feet shook off the Old World's dust,<br>Spread her white pinions to our Western blast,<br>And her free tresses to our sunshine cast,<br>One Hall should rise redeemed from Slavery's ban,<br>One Temple sacred to the Rights of Man!<br>Oh! if the spirits of the parted come,<br>Visiting angels, to their olden home;<br>If the dead fathers of the land look forth<br>From their fair dwellings, to the things of earth,<br>Is it a dream, that with their eyes of love,<br>They gaze now on us from the bowers above?<br>Lay's ardent soul, and Benezet the mild,<br>Steadfast in faith, yet gentle as a child,<br>Meek-hearted Woolman, and that brother-band,<br>The sorrowing exiles from their 'Father land,'<br>Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's bowers of vine,<br>And the blue beauty of their glorious Rhine,<br>To seek amidst our solemn depths of wood<br>Freedom from man, and holy peace with God;<br>Who first of all their testimonial gave<br>Against the oppressor, for the outcast slave,<br>Is it a dream that such as these look down,<br>And with their blessing our rejoicings crown?<br>Let us rejoice, that while the pulpit's door<br>Is barred against the pleaders for the poor;<br>While the Church, wrangling upon points of faith,<br>Forgets her bondsmen suffering unto death;<br>While crafty Traffic and the lust of Gain<br>Unite to forge Oppression's triple chain,<br>One door is open, and one Temple free,<br>As a resting-place for hunted Liberty!<br>Where men may speak, unshackled and unawed,<br>High words of Truth, for Freedom and for God.<br>And when that truth its perfect work hath done,<br>And rich with blessings o'er our land hath gone;<br>When not a slave beneath his yoke shall pine,<br>From broad Potomac to the far Sabine:<br>When unto angel lips at last is given<br>The silver trump of Jubilee in Heaven;<br>And from Virginia's plains, Kentucky's shades,<br>And through the dim Floridian everglades,<br>Rises, to meet that angel-trumpet's sound,<br>The voice of millions from their chains unbound;<br>Then, though this Hall be crumbling in decay,<br>Its strong walls blending with the common clay,<br>Yet, round the ruins of its strength shall stand<br>The best and noblest of a ransomed land —<br>Pilgrims, like these who throng around the shrine<br>Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine!<br>A prouder glory shall that ruin own<br>Than that which lingers round the Parthenon.<br>Here shall the child of after years be taught<br>The works of Freedom which his fathers wrought;<br>Told of the trials of the present hour,<br>Our weary strife with prejudice and power;<br>How the high errand quickened woman's soul,<br>And touched her lip as with a living coal;<br>How Freedom's martyms kept their lofty faith<br>True and unwavering, unto bonds and death;<br>The pencil's art shall sketch the ruined Hall,<br>The Muses' garland crown its aged wall,<br>And History's pen for after times record<br>Its consecration unto Freedom's God!</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=420608" data-title="Pennsylvania Hall de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="NOT with the splendors of the days of old,
The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold;
No weapons wrested from the fields of blood,
Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood,
And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw
A world, war-wasted, crouchin..."></div>
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