Sonnets and Canzonets

Did aught avail to quench, but more to fan
The flame that must consume all slavery, —
The serf then franchised and proclaimed a man.
Long wast thou heard amid the scoff and scorn
Of voices potent in thy city dear;
Steadfast didst face the storm, with heart of cheer,
And prove thyself the freeman nobly born,
Preacher of righteousness, of saints the peer.

“Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.”

    Milton.

XXIV

Bold Saint, thou firm believer in the Cross,
Again made glorious by self-sacrifice, —
Love’s free atonement given without love’s loss, —
That martyrdom to thee was lighter pain,
Since thus a race its liberties should gain;
Flash its sure consequence in Slavery’s eyes
When, ’scaping sabre’s clash and battle’s smoke,
She felt the justice of thy master-stroke:
Peaceful prosperity around us lies,
Freedom with loyalty thy valor gave;
Whilst thou, no felon doomed, for gallows fit,
O Patriot true! O Christian meek and brave!
Throned in the martyrs’ seat henceforth shalt sit;
Prophet of God! Messias of the Slave!

“O my brethren! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness,
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed;
For never can true courage dwell with them
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices.”

    Coleridge.

XXV

Nobly censorious of our transient age,
Hating oppressors in thy love of man,
Thou didst stride forward on the public stage
With the bold liberators to the van,
Scourging delinquents with a lofty rage.
Iconoclast, who ’gainst foul idols ran,
Tumbling false gods from their wide-worshipped shrine,
To throne therein the human and divine.
Charged was thy soul with vehement eloquence,
Strenuous with ample reason’s manly art;
Thy prayers were fervent, void of all pretence,
Wrath yielded place to pity in thy heart;
Eagerly of all learning mad’st thou spoil,
Before thy lamp, extinguished, spent its oil.

“There’s not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee: thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.”

    Wordsworth.

XXVI

Freedom’s first champion in our fettered land!
Nor politician nor base citizen
Could gibbet thee, nor silence, nor withstand.
Thy trenchant and emancipating pen
The patriot Lincoln snatched with steady hand,
Writing his name and thine on parchment white,
Midst war’s resistless and ensanguined flood;
Then held that proclamation high in sight
Before his fratricidal countrymen, —
“Freedom henceforth throughout the land for all,” —
And sealed the instrument with his own blood,
Bowing his mighty strength for slavery’s fall;
Whilst thou, stanch friend of largest liberty,
Survived, – its ruin and our peace to see.

“E venni dal martirio a questa pace.”

    Dante.
“Ah, me! how dark the discipline of pain,
Were not the suffering followed by the sense
Of infinite rest and infinite release!
This is our consolation; and again
A great soul cries to us in our suspense:
‘I came from martyrdom unto this peace.’”

    Longfellow.

XXVII

I

O thou, my country, ope thine eyes