En.Citatepedia^®.ro

The Rhymer’s Reply. Incense And Splendor

Incense and Splendor haunt me as I go.
Though my good works have been, alas, too few,
Though I do naught, High Heaven comes down to me,
And future ages pass in tall review.
I see the years to come as armies vast,
Stalking tremendous through the fields of time.
MAN is unborn. To-morrow he is born,
Flame-like to hover o’er the moil and grime,
Striving, aspiring till the shame is gone,
Sowing a million flowers, where now we mourn—
Laying new, precious pavements with a song,
Founding new shrines, the good streets to adorn.
I have seen lovers by those new-built walls
Clothed like the dawn in orange, gold and red.
Eyes flashing forth the glory-light of love
Under the wreaths that crowned each royal head.
Life was made greater by their sweetheart prayers.
Passion was turned to civic strength that day—
Piling the marbles, making fairer domes
With zeal that else had burned bright youth away.
I have seen priestesses of life go by
Gliding in samite through the incense-sea—
Innocent children marching with them there,
Singing in flowered robes, “THE EARTH IS FREE”:
While on the fair, deep-carved unfinished towers
Sentinels watched in armor, night and day—
Guarding the brazier-fires of hope and dream—
Wild was their peace, and dawn-bright their array!

poem by Vachel Lindsay
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An Argument

I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIAS

We find your soft Utopias as white
As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,
O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are
How human breasts adore alarum bells.
You house us in a hive of prigs and saints
Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.
I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore
Or be Lear's fool, straw-crowned amid the straw.
Promise us all our share in Agincourt
Say that our clerks shall venture scorns and death,
That future ant-hills will not be too good
For Henry Fifth, or Hotspur, or Macbeth.
Promise that through to-morrow's spirit-war
Man's deathless soul will hack and hew its way,
Each flaunting Caesar climbing to his fate
Scorning the utmost steps of yesterday.
Never a shallow jester any more!
Let not Jack Falstaff spill the ale in vain.
Let Touchstone set the fashions for the wise
And Ariel wreak his fancies through the rain.

II. THE RHYMER'S REPLY. INCENSE AND SPLENDOR

Incense and Splendor haunt me as I go.
Though my good works have been, alas, too few,
Though I do naught, High Heaven comes down to me,
And future ages pass in tall review.
I see the years to come as armies vast,
Stalking tremendous through the fields of time.
MAN is unborn. To-morrow he is born,
Flame-like to hover o'er the moil and grime,
Striving, aspiring till the shame is gone,
Sowing a million flowers, where now we mourn—
Laying new, precious pavements with a song,
Founding new shrines, the good streets to adorn.
I have seen lovers by those new-built walls
Clothed like the dawn in orange, gold and red.
Eyes flashing forth the glory-light of love
Under the wreaths that crowned each royal head.
Life was made greater by their sweetheart prayers.
Passion was turned to civic strength that day—
Piling the marbles, making fairer domes
With zeal that else had burned bright youth away.
I have seen priestesses of life go by
Gliding in samite through the incense-sea—
Innocent children marching with them there,
Singing in flowered robes, "THE EARTH IS FREE":
While on the fair, deep-carved unfinished towers
Sentinels watched in armor, night and day—
Guarding the brazier-fires of hope and dream—
Wild was their peace, and dawn-bright their array!

poem by Vachel Lindsay
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To H.a.b. On My Forty-seventh Birthday

WHEN one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;
He looks back to his lifeful past;
If age is silver, youth is gold:-
Could youth but last, could youth but last!

He turns back toward his youthful past
A-throb with life and love and hope,
Whose long-dead joys in memory last,
Whose shining days had ample scope;
He turns and lingers on the slope
Whose dusk leads down to sightless death:-
The sun once crowned that darkening cope,
And song once thrilled this weary breath.

Ali, he plods wearily to death,
Adown the gloaming into night,
But other lives breathe joyous breath
In morning's boundless golden light;
Their feet are swift, their eyes are bright,
Their hearts beat rhythms of hope and love,
Their being is a pure delight
In earth below and heaven above.

And you have hope and joy and love,
And you have youth's abounding life,
Whose crystal currents flow above
The stones and sands of care and strife.
May all your years with joys be rifc,
May you grow calmly to your prime,
A maiden sweet, a cherished wife,
A happy mother in due time.

All good you wish me, past my prime,
I wish with better hope to you,
And richer blessings than old Time
And Fate or Fortune found my due:
For you are kind and good and true,
And so when you are forty-seven
May spouse and children in your view
Make Home the happiest life-long Heaven.

poem by James Thomson
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Aphrodite

On a golden dawn in the dawn sublime
Of years ere the stars had ceased to sing,
Beautiful out of the sea-deeps cold
Aphrodite arose—the Flower of Time—
That, dear till the day of her blossoming,
The old, old Sea had borne in his heart.
Around her worshipping waves did part
Tremulous—glowing in rose and gold.
And the birds broke forth into singing sweet,
And flowers born scentless breathed perfume:
Softly she smiled upon Man forlorn,
And the music of love in his wild heart beat,
And down to the pit went his gods of gloom,
And earth grew bright and fair as a bride,
And folk in star-worlds wondering cried—
“Lo in the skies a new star is born!”

O Beloved, thus on my small world you
Rose, flushing it all with rosy flame!
Changing sad thoughts to a singing throng,
And creating the earth and the sky anew!
As Love you appeared—and, lo, you are Fame,
And, all my follies and sins despite,
You yet, Beloved, may see my light—
Small, but a star—mid the stars of song.

poem by Victor James Daley
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The Bride.

Her bridal dawn! her heart was fed
Last night with eerie food,
As, one by one, her lovers dead
Came in the solitude,
And shared the last sad feast with her
In Beauty's grave, as if it were
To-morrow, white and cold,
The ghost of all that she had been
Would pass away for e'er, as e'en
Their dreams had died of old.
Each, with his sigil of despair,
Moved in the eerie room,
For all were cognisant (as e'er
All are beyond the tom
That one night more the virgin tie
Which had bound them would be put by,
As she felt passion's stir
Throb in her maidenhood, until
All that she was, for good and ill,
Became a dream to her.
And so with mystic eyes and ears
They came to say good-bye,
Who had been her bright girlhood's peers
And knew e'en love must die —
That it must be a shadow, too,
As life had long been in the blue
And golden light above;
And as each pledged her in the dim
Remoteness, there came over him
The last desire of love.

poem by Robert Crawford
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Flight

On silver sand where ripples curled
I counted sea-gulls seven;
Shy, secret screened from all the world,
And innocent as heaven.
They did not of my nearness know,
For dawn was barely bright,
And they were still, like spots of snow
In that pale, pearly light.

Then one went forth unto the sea
That rippled up in gold,
And there were rubies flashing free
From out its wing-unfold;
It ducked and dived in pretty play,
The while the other six
So gravely sat it seemed that they
Were marvelled by its tricks.

Then with a sudden flurry each
Down-rushed to join its mate,
And in a flash that sickle beach
With rapture was elate.
With joy they pranked till everyone
Was diamonded with spray,
Then flicked with flame to greet the sun
They rose and winged away.

But with their going, oh, the surge
Of loss they left in me!
For in my heart was born the urge,
The passion to be free.
And where each dawn with terror brings
Some tale of bale and blight,
Who would not envy silver wings,
The sea-gull in its flight!

Let me not know the soils of woe
That chain this stricken earth;
Let me forget the fear and fret
That bind men from their birth;
Let me be the one with wind and sun,
With earth and sky and sea. . . .
Oh, let me teach in living speech
God's glory - Liberty.

poem by Robert William Service
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Dandelions

Welcome children of the Spring,
In your garbs of green and gold,
Lifting up your sun-crowned heads
On the verdant plain and wold.

As a bright and joyous troop
From the breast of earth ye came
Fair and lovely are your cheeks,
With sun-kisses all aflame.

In the dusty streets and lanes,
Where the lowly children play,
There as gentle friends ye smile,
Making brighter life's highway

Dewdrops and the morning sun,
Weave your garments fair and bright,
And we welcome you to-day
As the children of the light.

Children of the earth and sun.
We are slow to understand
All the richness of the gifts
Flowing from our Father's hand.

Were our vision clearer far,
In this sin-dimmed world of ours,
Would we not more thankful be
For the love that sends us flowers?

Welcome, early visitants,
With your sun-crowned golden hair,
With your message to our hearts
Of our Father's loving care.

poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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SonnetXLVII. To G.W.C.

STILL shines our August day, as calm, as bright
As when, long years ago, we sailied away
Down the blue Narrows and the widening bay
Into the wrinkling ocean's flashing light;
And the whole universe of sound and sight
Repeats the radiance of that festal day.
But for the inward eye no power can stay
The fleeting splendor of our youth's delight.
Still shines our August day, — but not for me
The old enchantment, — when, by care and sorrow
Untried, the hopeful heart was ever free
To greet the morn as herald of like morrow.
Yet shine, fair day! And let my soul from thee
Hope, faith, and strength for life's dim future borrow.

poem by Christopher Pearse Cranch
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Little Charlie Hades

Little Charlie Hades has gone
To dwell with God above,
Where live the little angel throng
In perfect peace and love.
His little spirit now is free,
Free from all earthly pain;
His little form no more can be
In the bright earth again.

His little life was short on earth,
Being but three years old;
His little form so full of mirth,
Now the cold earth enfold.
In her embrace she gently keeps
His form she calls her own,
There sweetly sleeping his last sleep,
Quietly all alone.

His laughing eyes of violet blue,
Are closed in deep repose;
His curly hair of coal black hue,
His little head inclose.
In beauty he was bright and fair,
He was his friends' delight;
They miss his footsteps everywhere,
From morning until night.

That innocent voice full of glee,
On earth is heard no more;
That precious soul from sin is free,
And will be evermore.
His parents mourn for Charlie dear,
Their loving little one;
And oft times they will shed a tear
For their little infant son.

poem by Julia A Moore
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Moving Through The Dew

I
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew,
Ere I waken in the city—Life, thy dawn makes all things new!
And up a fir-clad glen, far from all the haunts of men,
Up a glen among the mountains, oh my feet are wings again!

Moving through the dew, moving through the dew,
O mountains of my boyhood, I come again to you,
By the little path I know, with the sea far below,
And above, the great cloud-galleons with their sails of rose and snow

As of old, when all was young, and the earth a song unsung
And the heather through the crimson dawn its Eden incense flung
From the mountain-heights of joy, for a careless-hearted boy,
And the lavrocks rose like fountain sprays of bliss that ne’er could cloy,

From their little beds of bloom, from the golden gorse and broom,
With a song to God the Giver, o’er that waste of wild perfume;
Blowing from height to height, in a glory of great light,
While the cottage-clustered valleys held the lilac last of night,

So, when dawn is in the skies, in a dream, a dream, I rise,
And I follow my lost boyhood to the heights of Paradise.
Life, thy dawn makes all things new! Hills of Youth, I come to you,
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew.

II

Moving through the dew, moving through the dew,
Floats a brother’s face to meet me! Is it you? Is it you?
For the night I leave behind keeps these dazzled eyes still blind!
But oh, the little hill-flowers, their scent is wise and kind;

And I shall not lose the way from the darkness to the day,
While dust can cling as their scent clings to memory for aye;
And the least link in the chain can recall the whole again,
And heaven at last resume its far-flung harvests, grain by grain.

To the hill-flowers clings my dust, and tho’ eyeless Death may thrust
All else into the darkness, in their heaven I put my trust;
And a dawn shall bid me climb to the little spread of thyme
Where first I heard the ripple of the fountain-heads of rhyme.

And a fir-wood that I know, from dawn to sunset-glow,
Shall whisper to a lonely sea, that swings far, far below.
Death, thy dawn makes all things new. Hills of Youth, I come to you,
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew.

poem by Alfred Noyes
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Flower-De-Luce: Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
'There is no peace on earth,' I said;
'For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!'

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!'

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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A Child’s Treasures

Thou art home at last, my darling one,
Flushed and tired with thy play,
From morning dawn until setting sun
Hast thou been at sport away;
And thy steps are weary—hot thy brow,
Yet thine eyes with joy are bright,—
Ah! I read the riddle, show me now
The treasures thou graspest tight.

A pretty pebble, a tiny shell,
A feather by wild bird cast,
Gay flowers gathered in forest dell,
Already withering fast,
Four speckled eggs in a soft brown nest,
Thy last and thy greatest prize,
Such the things that fill with joy thy breast,
With laughing light thine eyes.

Ah! my child, what right have I to smile
And whisper, too dearly bought,
By wand’ring many a weary mile—
Dust, heat, and toilsome thought?
For we, the children of riper years,
Task aching heart and brain,
Waste yearning hopes and anxious fears
On baubles just as vain.

For empty title, ribbon or star,
For worshipped and much-sought gold,
How men will struggle at home—afar—
And suffer toils untold;
Plodding their narrow and earth-bound way
Amid restless care and strife,
Wasting not merely a fleeting day,
But the precious years of life.

And thou, fair child, with to-morrow’s dawn
Wilt rise up calm and glad,
To cull wild flowers ’mid wood and lawn,
Untroubled by memory sad;
But, alas! the worldly-wise of earth,
When life’s last bonds are riven,
Will find that for things of meanest worth
They’ve lost both Life and Heaven.

poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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Charles VII And Joan Of Arc At Rheims

A glorious pageant filled the church of the proud old city of Rheims,
One such as poet artists choose to form their loftiest themes:
There France beheld her proudest sons grouped in a glittering ring,
To place the crown upon the brow of their now triumphant king.

The full, rich tones of music swelled out on the perfumed air,
And chosen warriors, gaily decked, emblazoned banners bear:
Jewels blazed forth, and silver bright shone armor, shield and lance,
Of princes, peers, and nobles proud, the chivalry of France.

The object of these honors high, on lowly bended knee,
Before the altar homage paid to the God of Victory;
Whilst Renaud Chartres prayed that Heaven might blessings shower down
On that young head on which he now was chosen to place a crown.

Fair was the scene, but fairer far than pomp of church or state,
Than starry gems or banners proud, or trappings of the great,
Was the maiden frail whose prophet glance from heaven seemed to shine,
Who, in her mystic beauty, looked half mortal, half divine.

Her slight form cased in armor stern, the Maid of Orleans stood,
Her place a prouder one than that of prince of royal blood:
With homage deep to Heaven above, and prayers to Notre Dame,
She waived above the monarch’s head proud Victory’s Oriflamme.

Then, as the clouds of incense rose, encircling in its fold
That shining form, the kneeling king, the canopy of gold,
It seemed unto the gazers there a scene of magic birth,
Such as is rarely granted to the children of this earth.

Sudden a mystic sadness steals o’er Joan’s features bright,
Robbing her brow, her earnest eyes, of their unearthly light:
A voice from Him, by whose right arm her victories had been won,
Had whispered, ’bove the clank of steel, “Thy mission now is done.”

Perchance the future, then, was shown to her pure spirit’s gaze,
The future with its sufferings, the shame, the scaffold’s blaze;
The deaf’ning shouts, the surging crowd, the incense, mounting high,
Foreshadowed to her shrinking soul the death she was to die.

The youthful monarch now was crowned, and lowly at his feet
Did France’s saviour bend her form, rendering homage meet.
No guerdon for past deeds of worth sought that young noble heart,
She, who might all rewards have claimed, asked only to depart.

Oh! France! of all the stoned names that deck thy history’s page,
Thy sainted kings, thy warriors proud, thy statesmen stern and sage,
None, none received the glorious light, the strange Promethean spark
That Heaven vouchsafed thy spotless maid, immortal Joan of Arc!

poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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Blindfold

this is the time in my life
when all i see is you.
a time in my life, when
i don't know what to do.

you touched my life like no one could
and my life turned from light to dark blue.

what will it take for you to love me?
there is so much more to me
than the human eye can see.

my love for you is like the light
yellow moon, rising in the east
and like the bright orange sun
going down in the west.
24 hours in all its glory
this is my love, this is my story.

if you was to take off the blindfold
so that you could see
you would surely fall in love with me.
for my love is so deep and so wide
that it covers the entire sky.

when i go to bed at night
there you are in plain sight.
and when i wake in the morning
and open up my eyes
i see you standing by my side.

you are with me 24/7, and makes me
feel like i'm in heaven.

so all i ask is that you take
a chance with me.
and i will set your heart free.

poem by Louis Rams
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To A Cat

STATELY, kindly, lordly friend,
Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.

All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand's caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.

Dogs may fawn on all and some
As they come;
You, a friend of loftier mind,
Answer friends alone in kind.
Just your foot upon my hand
Softly bids it understand.

Morning round this silent sweet
Garden-seat
Sheds its wealth of gathering light,
Thrills the gradual clouds with might,
Changes woodland, orchard, heath,
Lawn, and garden there beneath.

Fair and dim they gleamed below:
Now they glow
Deep as even your sunbright eyes,
Fair as even the wakening skies.
Can it not or can it be
Now that you give thanks to see ?

May not you rejoice as I,
Seeing the sky
Change to heaven revealed, and bid
Earth reveal the heaven it hid
All night long from stars and moon,
Now the sun sets all in tune?

What within you wakes with day
Who can say?
All too little may we tell,
Friends who like each other well,
What might haply, if we might,
Bid us read our lives aright.

Wild on woodland ways your sires
Flashed like fires;
Fair as flame and fierce and fleet
As with wings on wingless feet
Shone and sprang your mother, free,
Bright and brave as wind or sea.

Free and proud and glad as they,
Here to-day
Rests or roams their radiant child,
Vanquished not, but reconciled,
Free from curb of aught above
Save the lovely curb of love.

Love through dreams of souls divine
Fain would shine
Round a dawn whose light and song
Then should right our mutual wrong---
Speak, and seal the love-lit law
Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw.

Dreams were theirs; yet haply may
Dawn a day
When such friends and fellows born,
Seeing our earth as fair at morn,
May for wiser love's sake see
More of heaven's deep heart than we.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Amaranth

Ah, in the night, all music haunts me here. . . .
Is it for naught high Heaven cracks and yawns
And the tremendous Amaranth descends
Sweet with the glory of ten thousand dawns?

Does it not mean my God would have me say: —
"Whether you will or no, O city young,
Heaven will bloom like one great flower for you,
Flash and loom greatly all your marts among?"

Friends, I will not cease hoping though you weep.
Such things I see, and some of them shall come
Though now our streets are harsh and ashen-gray,
Though our strong youths are strident now, or dumb.
Friends, that sweet town, that wonder-town, shall rise.
Naught can delay it. Though it may not be
Just as I dream, it comes at last I know
With streets like channels of an incense-sea.

poem by Vachel Lindsay
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Christmas Bells

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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There’s Always a Dawn

There were spears
There were swords
Made for hunting
Not war
Yet with it, from the blood of the innocent will create a new dawn

But war came
Great battles and fights
Many dead
Few still alive
To face the never ending dawn

A new world made
By the people who were left
Conquerors and Defeated
United in one land
A new dawn created with the help of man

The one land changed
More wars began
Famine and disease
Grew a part of that
But the dawn still remained

It was after these wars that history began
Written by the victors about
The defeated
The damned
The dawn was never mentioned- forgotten

These people
The defeated left the land
In search for a new home
Away from the wars
Searching forever for a new dawn

Perhaps they were wise
To leave with such haste
For the empire they once knew
Began to break
The dawn now remembered- the people prayed

The empire broke
The great kingdom now gone
In its place a new world just like the dawn
Still life in the world went on and on
Yet the dawn was still worshiped- never forgotten

The years past
More wars began
Countries discovered
New weapons for man
The promise man made- left to die

Centuries turned
Discoveries made
Technology found
Diseases dead
Still on and on the dawn survives

But for every technology there’s always a weapon
For every discovery there’s always a second
With one disease dead more still arrive
And with every new day a new world is created
Though the dawn still remained

So the world keeps turning
In the dark and light
For every bad thing
There’s always a light
In the dawn

In war it is Peace
In death it is Life
In disease it is the Cures
In the world it is Hope
Disguised as the dawn

Hope keeps us going
Through the bad it is strength
To do what is right, To help the world
In the light it shines, shines for the future, a brighter day
A new dawn

The earth might be in darkness
With a shadow on its edge
Waiting to consume
Till the universe is dead
The dawn still remains

But still the world keeps turning
Like the never ending dawn
Time is forever
And the universe survives
Because of the dawn

It might seem the end
Of the world that we know
But at the end of a day
There’s always mans hope
There’s always a dawn

poem by Carrie Halliday
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I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day

I heard the bells on christmas day their old familiar carols play, and wild and
Sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all christendom had rolled
Along th'un broken song of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair i bowed my head; "there is no peace on earth," i said, "for hate
Is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men."
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep; "god is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."
Till, ringing singing on it's way, the world revolved from night to day. a
Voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, good will to men.

song performed by by Carpenters
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Heard The Bell On Christmas Day

I heard the bells on christmas day their old familiar carols play, and wild and
Sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all christendom had rolled
Along thun broken song of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head; there is no peace on earth, I said, for hate
Is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep; God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.
Till, ringing singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day. a
Voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, good will to men.

song performed by by Carpenters
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hymn For The Celebration Of Emancipation At Newburyport

NOT unto us who did but seek
The word that burned within to speak,
Not unto us this day belong
The triumph and exultant song.
Upon us fell in early youth
The burden of unwelcome truth,
And left us, weak and frail and few,
The censor's painful work to do.
Thenceforth our life a fight became,
The air we breathed was hot with blame;
For not with gauged and softened tone
We made the bondman's cause our own.
We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn,
The private hate, the public scorn;
Yet held through all the paths we trod
Our faith in man and trust in God.
We prayed and hoped; but still, with awe,
The coming of the sword we saw;
We heard the nearing steps of doom,
We saw the shade of things to come.
In grief which they alone can feel
Who from a mother's wrong appeal,
With blended lines of fear and hope
We cast our country's horoscope.
For still within her house of life
We marked the lurid sign of strife,
And, poisoning and imbittering all,
We saw the star of Wormwood fall.
Deep as our love for her became
Our hate of all that wrought her shame,
And if, thereby, with tongue and pen
We erred, — we were but mortal men.
We hoped for peace; our eyes survey
The blood-red dawn of Freedom's day:
We prayed for love to loose the chain;
'T is shorn by battle's axe in twain!
Nor skill nor strength nor zeal of ours
Has mined and heaved the hostile towers;
Not by our hands is turned the key
That sets the sighing captives free.
A redder sea than Egypt's wave
Is piled and parted for the slave;
A darker cloud moves on in light;
A fiercer fire is guide by night!
The praise, O Lord! is Thine alone,
In Thy own way Thy work is done!
Our poor gifts at Thy feet we cast,
To whom be glory, first and last!

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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