I
How weird a whisper! 'tis from Wallabout.
'Tis glory hoarse with calling: "Raise those hulks
Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks
Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out
Their throats with his god-breath, to swell the shout
Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks,
Strewn and held fast where Darkness, beaten, sulks
That thrall has been forever put to rout.
Those mangled thousands are not dead; they live,
Refashioned men by freedom. Is the tory
Behind the sun, to mock me, who am Glory,
Being the lifted life those martyrs give?
He creeps beneath the sun and, ghastly gory,
Crys out: "Thou yet shall be the fugitive".