Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Poems on Slavery — The Warning
(1842)
“ The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all, Expired, and thousands perished in the fall! There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel, Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, And shake the pillars of this Commonweal, Till the vast Temple of our liberties A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. ”
