Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first,
The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accurst.
Man is more than Constitutions. Better rot beneath the sod,
Than be true to Church and State, while we are doubly false to God!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?
What! shall we guard our neighbor still.
While woman shrieks beneath his rod,
And while he tramples down, at will,
The image of a common God?
Shall watch and ward be round him set
Of Northern nerve and bayonet?
And shall we know, and share with him,
The danger and the growing shame?
And see our Freedom's light grow dim,
Which should have filled the world with flame?
And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,
A world's reproach around us burn?
No! By each spot of haunted ground,
Where Freedom weeps her children's fall;
By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound;
By Griswold's stained and shattered wall;
By Warren's ghost; by Langdon's shade;
By all the memories of our dead;
By their enlarging souls, which burst
The bands and fetters round them set;
By the free Pilgrim spirit, nursed
Within our bosoms yet;
By all above, around, below,
Be ours the indignant answer—NO!
J.G. WHITTIER.