Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Anti-Slavery Poems

In War Time
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!

1865.