Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (304 page)

Massachusetts to Virginia

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

THE BLAST from Freedom’s Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle’s peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen’s steel,

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
  
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Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high
Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky;
  
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Yet not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor here,
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George’s bank;
Cold on the shores of Labrador the fog lies white and dank;
Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man
  
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The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms,
Bent grimly o’er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,
They laugh to scorn the slaver’s threat against their rocky home.
  
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What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day
When o’er her conquered valleys swept the Briton’s steel array?
How, side by side with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton’s charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call
  
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Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall?
When, echoing back her Henry’s cry, came pulsing on each breath
Of Northern winds the thrilling sounds of ‘Liberty or Death!’

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their fathers’ memory, false to the faith they loved;
  
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If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery’s hateful hell;
Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound’s yell;
We gather, at your summons, above our fathers’ graves,
  
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From Freedom’s holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow;
The spirit of her early time is with her even now;
Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow and calm and cool,
She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister’s slave and tool!
  
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All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may,
Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day;
But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone,
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!

Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God’s free air
  
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With woman’s shriek beneath the lash, and manhood’s wild despair;
Cling closer to the ‘cleaving curse’ that writes upon your plains
The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.

Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old,
By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold;
  
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Gloat o’er the new-born child, and count his market value, when
The maddened mother’s cry of woe shall pierce the slaver’s den!

Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name;
Plant, if ye will, your fathers’ graves with rankest weeds of shame;
Be, if ye will, the scandal of God’s fair universe;
  
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We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse.

A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom’s shrine hath been,
Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire’s mountain men:
The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still
In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.
  
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And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey
Beneath the very shadow of Bunker’s shaft of gray,
How, through the free lips of the son, the father’s warning spoke;
How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke!

A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high,
  
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A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply;
Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang,
And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang!

The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thousands as of one,
The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington;
  
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From Norfolk’s ancient villages, from Plymouth’s rocky bound
To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her round;

From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose
Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows,
To where Wachuset’s wintry blasts the mountain larches stir,
  
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Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of ‘God save Latimer!’

And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray;
And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay!
Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill,
And the cheer of Hampshire’s woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill.
  
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The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters,
Deep calling unto deep aloud, the sound of many waters!
Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand?
No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land!

Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne,
  
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In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn;
You’ve spurned our kindest counsels; you’ve hunted for our lives;
And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves!

We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch within
The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin;
  
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We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can,
With the strong upward tendencies and God-like soul of man!

But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given
For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven;
No slave-hunt in our borders, — no pirate on our strand!
  
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No fetters in the Bay State, — no slave upon our land!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Barclay of Ury

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

UP the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
 
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
  
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Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
 
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
  
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Fed and clothed at Ury’s gate,
 
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets of Aberdeen
 
Came he slowly riding;
  
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And, to all he saw and heard,
Answering not with bitter word,
 
Turning not for chiding.

Came a troop with broadswords swinging,
Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
  
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Loose and free and froward;
Quoth the foremost, ‘Ride him down!
Push him! prick him! through the town
 
Drive the Quaker coward!’

But from out the thickening crowd
  
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Cried a sudden voice and loud:
 
‘Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!’
And the old man at his side
Saw a comrade, battle tried,
 
Scarred and sunburned darkly,
  
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Who with ready weapon bare,
Fronting to the troopers there,
 
Cried aloud: ‘God save us,
Call ye coward him who stood
Ankle deep in Lützen’s blood,
  
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With the brave Gustavus?’

‘Nay, I do not need thy sword,
Comrade mine,’ said Ury’s lord.
 
‘Put it up, I pray thee:
Passive to His holy will,
  
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Trust I in my Master still,
 
Even though He slay me.

‘Pledges of thy love and faith,
Proved on many a field of death,
 
Not by me are needed.’
  
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Marvelled much that henchman bold,
That his laird, so stout of old,
 
Now so meekly pleaded.

‘Woe ‘s the day!’ he sadly said,
With a slowly shaking head,
  
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And a look of pity;
‘Ury’s honest lord reviled,
Mock of knave and sport of child,
 
In his own good city!

‘Speak the word, and, master mine,
  
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As we charged on Tilly’s line,
 
And his Walloon lancers,
Smiting through their midst we’ll teach
Civil look and decent speech
 
To these boyish prancers!’
  
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‘Marvel not, mine ancient friend,
Like beginning, like the end,’
 
Quoth the Laird of Ury;
‘Is the sinful servant more
Than his gracious Lord who bore
  
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Bonds and stripes in Jewry?

‘Give me joy that in his name
I can bear, with patient frame,
 
All these vain ones offer;
While for them He suffereth long,
  
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Shall I answer wrong with wrong,
 
Scoffing with the scoffer?

‘Happier I, with loss of all,
Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,
 
With few friends to greet me,
  
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Than when reeve and squire were seen,
Riding out from Aberdeen,
 
With bared heads to meet me.

‘When each goodwife, o’er and o’er,
Blessed me as I passed her door;
  
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And the snooded daughter,
Through her casement glancing down,
Smiled on him who bore renown
 
From red fields of slaughter.

‘Hard to feel the stranger’s scoff,
  
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Hard the old friend’s falling off,
 
Hard to learn forgiving;
But the Lord His own rewards,
And His love with theirs accords,
 
Warm and fresh and living.
  
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‘Through this dark and stormy night
Faith beholds a feeble light
 
Up the blackness streaking;
Knowing God’s own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
  
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For the full day-breaking!’

So the Laird of Ury said,
Turning slow his horse’s head
 
Towards the Tolbooth prison,
Where, through iron gates, he heard
  
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Poor disciples of the Word
 
Preach of Christ arisen!

Not in vain, Confessor old,
Unto us the tale is told
 
Of thy day of trial;
  
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Every age on him who strays
From its broad and beaten ways
 
Pours its seven-fold vial.

Happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear,
  
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O’er the rabble’s laughter;
And while Hatred’s fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
 
Of the good hereafter.

Knowing this, that never yet
  
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Share of Truth was vainly set
 
In the world’s wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
 
Reap the harvests yellow.
  
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Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,
Must the moral pioneer
 
From the Future borrow;
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And, on midnight’s sky of rain,
  
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Paint the golden morrow!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order