John Greenleaf Whittier.
At last the President resolved to throw down the gauntlet, and on September 22, 1862, proclaimed that all slaves should be freed in such states as were in rebellion against the United States on January 1, 1863. The South continued in rebellion, and the proclamation went into effect on the first day of the new year.
BOSTON HYMN
[January 1, 1863]
The word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the seaside,
And filled their hearts with flame.
God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.
Think ye I made this ball
A field of havoc and war,
Where tyrants great and tyrants small
Might harry the weak and poor?
My angel—his name is Freedom—
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.
Lo! I uncover the land,
Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers the statue
When he has wrought his best;
I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the seas,
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds and the boreal fleece.