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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420723" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The King's Missive</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">UNDER the great hill sloping bare<br>To cove and meadow and Common lot,<br>In his council chamber and oaken chair,<br>Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.<br>A grave, strong man, who knew no peer<br>In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear<br>Of God, not man, and for good or ill<br>Held his trust with an iron will.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He had shorn with his sword the cross from out<br>The flag, and cloven the May-pole down,<br>Harried the heathen round about,<br>And whipped the Quakers from town to town.<br>Earnest and honest, a man at need<br>To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,<br>He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal<br>The gate of the holy common weal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His brow was clouded, his eye was stern,<br>With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath;<br>'Woe's me!' he murmured: 'at every turn<br>The pestilent Quakers are in my path!<br>Some we have scourged, and banished some,<br>Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come,<br>Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in,<br>Sowing their heresy's seed of sin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Did we count on this? Did we leave behind<br>The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease<br>Of our English hearths and homes, to find<br>Troublers of Israel such as these?<br>Shall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid!<br>I will do as the prophet to Agag did<br>They come to poison the wells of the Word,<br>I will hew them in pieces before the Lord!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk<br>Entered, and whispered under breath,<br>'There waits below for the hangman's work<br>A fellow banished on pain of death--<br>Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip,<br>Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship<br>At anchor here in a Christian port,<br>With freight of the devil and all his sort!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Twice and thrice on the chamber floor<br>Striding fiercely from wall to wall,<br>'The Lord do so to me and more,'<br>The Governor cried, 'if I hang not all!<br>Bring hither the Quaker.' Calm, sedate,<br>With the look of a man at ease with fate,<br>Into that presence grim and dread<br>Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Off with the knave's hat!' An angry hand<br>Smote down the offence; but the wearer said,<br>With a quiet smile, 'By the king's command<br>I bear his message and stand in his stead.'<br>In the Governor's hand a missive he laid<br>With the royal arms on its seal displayed,<br>And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat,<br>Uncovering, 'Give Mr. Shattuck his hat.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He turned to the Quaker, bowing low,--<br>'The king commandeth your friends' release;<br>Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although<br>To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase.<br>What he here enjoineth, John Endicott,<br>His loyal servant, questioneth not.<br>You are free! God grant the spirit you own<br>May take you from us to parts unknown.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So the door of the jail was open cast,<br>And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den<br>Tender youth and girlhood passed,<br>With age-bowed women and gray-locked men.<br>And the voice of one appointed to die<br>Was lifted in praise and thanks on high,<br>And the little maid from New Netherlands<br>Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And one, whose call was to minister<br>To the souls in prison, beside him went,<br>An ancient woman, bearing with her<br>The linen shroud for his burial meant.<br>For she, not counting her own life dear,<br>In the strength of a love that cast out fear,<br>Had watched and served where her brethren died,<br>Like those who waited the cross beside.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One moment they paused on their way to look<br>On the martyr graves by the Common side,<br>And much scourged Wharton of Salem took<br>His burden of prophecy up and cried<br>'Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain<br>Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain;<br>Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned,<br>With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The autumn haze lay soft and still<br>On wood and meadow and upland farms;<br>On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill<br>Slowly and lazily swung its arms;<br>Broad in the sunshine stretched away,<br>With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay;<br>And over water and dusk of pines<br>Blue hills lifted their faint outlines.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed,<br>The sumach added its crimson fleck,<br>And double in air and water showed<br>The tinted maples along the Neck;<br>Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist,<br>And gentian fringes of amethyst,<br>And royal plumes of golden-rod,<br>The grazing cattle on Centry trod.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But as they who see not, the Quakers saw<br>The world about them; they only thought<br>With deep thanksgiving and pious awe<br>On the great deliverance God had wrought.<br>Through lane and alley the gazing town<br>Noisily followed them up and down;<br>Some with scoffing and brutal jeer,<br>Some with pity and words of cheer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One brave voice rose above the din.<br>Upsall, gray with his length of days,<br>Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn<br>'Men of Boston, give God the praise<br>No more shall innocent blood call down<br>The bolts of wrath on your guilty town.<br>The freedom of worship, dear to you,<br>Is dear to all, and to all is due.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I see the vision of days to come,<br>When your beautiful City of the Bay<br>Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home,<br>And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay.<br>The varying notes of worship shall blend<br>And as one great prayer to God ascend,<br>And hands of mutual charity raise<br>Walls of salvation and gates of praise.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So passed the Quakers through Boston town,<br>Whose painful ministers sighed to see<br>The walls of their sheep-fold falling down,<br>And wolves of heresy prowling free.<br>But the years went on, and brought no wrong;<br>With milder counsels the State grew strong,<br>As outward Letter and inward Light<br>Kept the balance of truth aright.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Puritan spirit perishing not,<br>To Concord's yeomen the signal sent,<br>And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot<br>That severed the chains of a continent.<br>With its gentler mission of peace and good-will<br>The thought of the Quaker is living still,<br>And the freedom of soul he prophesied<br>Is gospel and law where the martyrs died.</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=420723" data-title="The King's Missive de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="UNDER the great hill sloping bare
To cove and meadow and Common lot,
In his council chamber and oaken chair,
Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.
A grave, strong man, who knew no peer
In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear
Of God, not man, a..."></div>
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