The flag that floated from the dome
Flapped menace in the morning air;
I stood, a perilled stranger, where
The human broker made his home.
For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword
And Law their threefold sanction gave,
And to the quarry of the slave
Went hawking with our symbol-bird.
On the oppressor's side was power;
And yet I knew that every wrong,
However old, however strong,
But waited God's avenging hour.
I knew that truth would crush the lie,—
Somehow, sometime, the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.
But now I see it! In the sun
A free flag floats from yonder dome,
And at the nation's hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.
Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer,
The message of deliverance comes,
But heralded by roll of drums
On waves of battle-troubled air!—
'Midst sounds that madden and appall,
The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!—
The harp of David melting through
The demon-agonies of Saul!
Not as we hoped;—but what are we?
Above our broken dreams and plans
God lays, with wiser hand than man's,
The corner-stones of liberty.
I cavil not with Him: the voice
That freedom's blessed gospel tells
Is sweet to me as silver bells,
Rejoicing!—yea, I will rejoice!
Dear friends still toiling in the sun,—
Ye dearer ones who, gone before,
Are watching from the eternal shore
The slow work by your hands begun,—