THE PINE TREE1 Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay Has she none to break the silence? Has State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, Thus saith the Lord!' Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array y! What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day. Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries; Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? Would ye barter man for cotton? That your gains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream? Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam? O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry, Up for God and Massachusetts ! Set your feet on Mammon's lie! Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's latest pound, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the heart o' the Bay State sound !' Where's the man for Massachusetts ? Where's the voice to speak her free? Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? 1 Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846. (WHITTIER.) Whittier sent the poem to Sumner in a letter in which he said: 'I have just read the proceedings of your Whig convention, and the lines enclosed are a feeble expression of my feelings. I look upon the rejection of Stephen C. Phillips's resolutions as an evidence that the end and aim of the managers of the convention was to go just far enough to scare the party and no farther. All thanks for the free voices of thyself, Phillips, Allen, and Adams. Notwithstanding the result you have not spoken in vain.' (Quoted in Pickard's Life, vol. i, p. 316.) she none to do and dare? O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field! My heart was heavy, for its trust had been Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong; So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men, One summer Sabbath day I strolled among The green mounds of the village burialplace; Where, pondering how all human love and hate Find one sad level; and how, soon or late, Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face, And cold hands folded over a still heart, Pass the green threshold of our common grave, Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart, Awed for myself, and pitying my race, 1846? BARCLAY OF URY 2 Up the streets of Aberdeen, By the kirk and college green, Rode the Laird of Ury; (1849.) Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. 'I find more satisfaction,' said Barclay, as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor.' (WHITTIER.) But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food. Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and THE HUSKERS 1847 Ir was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again; The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow-flowers of May. |