John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Anti-Slavery PoemsTexas
To Massachusetts
W
No fiery rallying sign?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine!
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesman stand apart,
And comes no warm approving
From Mammon’s crowded mart?
By a summons of thine own!
By all save truth forsaken,
Stand fast with that alone!
Shrink not from strife unequal!
With the best is always hope;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up!
Come voices long and loud,
And far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-words on the cloud;
When from Penobscot’s fountains
A deep response is heard,
And across the Western mountains
Rolls back thy rallying word;
With its allies just in view?
Oh, by hearth and holy altar,
My fatherland, be true!
Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom!
Speed them onward far and fast!
Over hill and valley speed them,
Like the sibyl’s on the blast!
The shackles from her hand;
With the rugged North is waking
The level sunset land!
On they come, the free battalions!
East and West and North they come,
And the heart-beat of the millions
Is the beat of Freedom’s drum.
No heed to place-fed knaves!
Bar and bolt the door forever
Against the land of slaves!”
Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it,
The heavens above us spread!
The land is roused,—its spirit
Was sleeping, but not dead!