John Greenleaf Whittier

“ Not as we hoped;—but what are we?
⁠Above our broken dreams and plans
⁠God lays, with wiser hand than man's,
The corner-stones of liberty.
I cavil not with Him: the voice
⁠That freedom's blessed gospel tells
⁠Is sweet to me as silver bells,
Rejoicing!—yea, I will rejoice!
Dear friends still toiling in the sun,—
⁠Ye dearer ones who, gone before,
⁠Are watching from the eternal shore
The slow work by your hands begun,—
Rejoice with me! The chastening rod
⁠Blossoms with love; the furnace heat
⁠Grows cool beneath His blessed feet
Whose form is as the Son of God! ”

“ And with a secret pain,
And smiles that seem akin to tears,
We hear the wild refrain.
We dare not share the negro's trust,
Nor yet his hope deny;
We only know that God is just,
And every wrong shall die. ”

“ On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
Draw we not even now a freer breath,
As from our shoulders falls a load of death
Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore
When keen with life to a dead horror bound? ”

“ And suffer with our suffering land
For consience' sake.
Why ask for ease where all is pain?
Shall we alone
Be left to add our gain to gain,
When over Armageddon's plain
The trump is blown?
To suffer well is well to serve ”

“ Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?
"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be.
What hope remains for thee and me."
Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won. ”

“ The common freehold of the brave,
⁠The gift of saints and martyrs.
Our very sins and follies teach
⁠Our kindred frail and human:
We carp at faults with bitter speech,
The while for one unshared by each
⁠We have a score in common. ”

“ What mean the gladness of the plain,
⁠This joy of eve and morn,
The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
⁠And yellow locks of corn?
Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
⁠And hearts with hate are hot;
But even-paced come round the years,
⁠And Nature changes not. ”

“ Above the storm our prayers we lift,
⁠Thy will be done!
The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease? ”

“ In November, 1861, a Union force under Commodore Dupont and General Sherman captured Port Royal, and from this point as a basis of operations, the neighboring islands between Charleston and Savannah were taken possession of. The early occupation of this district, where the negro population was greatly in excess of the white, gave an opportunity which was at once seized upon, of practically emancipating the slaves and of beginning that work of civilization which was accepted as the grave responsibility of those who had labored for freedom. ”

“ 'Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag,' she said. ”

“ Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Athenxus considers this a just punishment for their wickedness in first introducing the slave-trade into Greece. From this ancient villany of the Chians the proverb arose, "The Chian hath bought himself a master." ”