Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, "My Father made them all!" Are they not his by a peculiar right, And by an emphasis of interest his, Whose eyes they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love That planned and built, and still upholds, a world So clothed with beauty for rebellious man? Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot; but ye will not find In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who, unimpeached Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than you. He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city, planned or e'er the hills Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea With all his roaring multitude of waves. His freedom is the same in every state; And no condition of this changeful life, So manifold in cares, whose every day Bring its own evil with it, makes it less. For he has wings that neither sickness, pain, Nor penury can cripple or confine ;
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds His body bound; but knows not what a range His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain; And that to bind him is a vain attempt, Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells.
O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more! My ear is pained, My soul is sick, with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; It does not feel for man; the natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax, That falls asunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colored like his own, and, having power To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And, worse than all, and most to be deplored As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. No; dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home. Then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.
His truth is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal ;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
« ElőzőTovább » |