225 No broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes; 25 She chooses men for her august abodes, Building them fair and fronting to the dawn; Yet, when we seek her, we but find a few Light footprints, leading morn-ward through the dew: Before the day had risen, she was gone. And we must follow: swiftly runs she on, Half turns her face, half smiles through golden hair, That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace ; And, as the finder of some unknown realm, 30 35 40 Or if we shrink, better remount our ships STANZAS ON FREEDOM 55 Sung at the anti-slavery picnic in Dedham, on the anniversary of West Indian Emancipation, August 1, 1843. MEN! whose boast it is that ye * See Lowell's Letters, ii, 36, for the last part of this poem as originally written, and for Lowell's comment. No! true Freedom is to share They are slaves who fear to speak They are slaves who will not choose From the truth they needs must think; BIBLIOLATRES BOWING thyself in dust before a Book, What gods the heathen carves in wood and stone, 23 31 5 10 There is no broken reed so poor and base, And what art thou, own brother of the clod, That from His hand the crook would'st snatch away 15 And shake instead thy dry and sapless rod, 20 Thou hear'st not well the mountain organ-tones God is not dumb, that He should speak no more; Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 30 3.5 And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; 39 While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. THE PRESENT CRISIS In the year 1844, which is the date of the following poem, the question of the annexation of Texas was pending, and it was made an issue of the presidential campaign then taking place. The anti-slavery party feared and opposed annexation, on account of the added strength which it would give to slavery, and the South desired it for the same reason.] WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instan taneous throe, 5 When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart. 10 So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God |