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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420676" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Curse Of The Charter-Breakers</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IN Westminster's royal halls,<br>Robed in their pontificals,<br>England's ancient prelates stood<br>For the people's right and good.<br>Closed around the waiting crowd,<br>Dark and still, like winter's cloud;<br>King and council, lord and knight,<br>Squire and yeoman, stood in sight;<br>Stood to hear the priest rehearse,<br>In God's name, the Church's curse,<br>By the tapers round them lit,<br>Slowly, sternly uttering it.<br>'Right of voice in framing laws,<br>Right of peers to try each cause;<br>Peasant homestead, mean and small,<br>Sacred as the monarch's hall, —<br>'Whoso lays his hand on these,<br>England's ancient liberties;<br>Whoso breaks, by word or deed,<br>England's vow at Runnymede;<br>'Be he Prince or belted knight,<br>Whatsoe'er his rank or might,<br>If the highest, then the worst,<br>Let him live and die accursed.<br>'Thou, who to Thy Church hast given<br>Keys alike, of hell and heaven,<br>Make our word and witness sure,<br>Let the curse we speak endure!'<br>Silent, while that curse was said,<br>Every bare and listening head<br>Bowed in reverent awe, and then<br>All the people said, Amen!<br>Seven times the bells have tolled,<br>For the centuries gray and old,<br>Since that stoled and mitred band<br>Cursed the tyrants of their land.<br>Since the priesthood, like a tower,<br>Stood between the poor and power;<br>And the wronged and trodden down<br>Blessed the abbot's shaven crown.<br>Gone, thank God, their wizard spell,<br>Lost, their keys of heaven and hell;<br>Yet I sigh for men as bold<br>As those bearded priests of old.<br>Now, too oft the priesthood wait<br>At the threshold of the state;<br>Waiting for the beck and nod<br>Of its power as law and God.<br>Fraud exults, while solemn words<br>Sanctify his stolen hoards;<br>Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips<br>Bless his manacles and whips.<br>Not on them the poor rely,<br>Not to them looks liberty,<br>Who with fawning falsehood cower<br>To the wrong, when clothed with power.<br>Oh, to see them meanly cling,<br>Round the master, round the king,<br>Sported with, and sold and bought, —<br>Pitifuller sight is not!<br>Tell me not that this must be:<br>God's true priest is always free;<br>Free, the needed truth to speak,<br>Right the wronged, and raise the weak.<br>Not to fawn on wealth and state,<br>Leaving Lazarus at the gate;<br>Not to peddle creeds like wares;<br>Got to mutter hireling prayers;<br>Nor to paint the new life's bliss<br>On the sable ground of this;<br>Golden streets for idle knave,<br>Sabbath rest for weary slave!<br>Not for words and works like these,<br>Priest of God, thy mission is;<br>But to make earth's desert glad,<br>In its Eden greenness clad;<br>And to level manhood bring<br>Lord and peasant, serf and king;<br>And the Christ of God to find<br>In the humblest of thy kind!.<br>Thine to work as well as pray,<br>Clearing thorny wrongs away;<br>Plucking up the weeds of sin,<br>Letting heaven's warm sunshine in;<br>Watching on the hills of Faith.;<br>Listening what the spirit saith,<br>Of the dim-seen light afar,<br>Growing like a nearing star.<br>God's interpreter art thou,<br>To the waiting ones below;<br>'Twixt them and its light midway<br>Heralding the better day;<br>Catching gleams of temple spires,<br>Hearing notes of angel choirs,<br>Where, as yet unseen of them,<br>Comes the New Jerusalem!<br>Like the seer of Patmos gazing,<br>On the glory downward blazing;<br>Till upon Earth's grateful sod<br>Rests the City of our God!<br>--</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=420676" data-title="The Curse Of The Charter-Breakers de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="IN Westminster's royal halls,
Robed in their pontificals,
England's ancient prelates stood
For the people's right and good.
Closed around the waiting crowd,
Dark and still, like winter's cloud;
King and council, lord and knight,
Squire and yeoman,..."></div>
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