WHAT constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No:-men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain; These constitute a state;
And sovereign law, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks; Such was this heaven-loved isle,
Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore ! No more shall freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more? Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave 'T is folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
BEFORE proud Rome's imperial throne In mind's unconquered mood,
As if the triumph were his own,
The dauntless captive stood. None, to have seen his freeborn air, Had fancied him a captive there.
Though through the crowded streets of Rome, With slow and stately tread,
Far from his own loved island home, That day in triumph led, Unbound his head, unbent his knee, Undimmed his eye, his aspect free.
A free and fearless glance he cast On temple, arch, and tower, By which the long procession passed Of Rome's victorious power; And somewhat of a scornful smile Upcurled his haughty lip the while.
And now he stood, with brow serene, Where slaves might prostrate fall, Bearing a Briton's manly mien In Cæsar's palace hall;
Claiming, with kindled brow and cheek, The liberty e'en there to speak.
Nor could Rome's haughty lord withstand The claim that look preferred, But motioned with uplifted hand
The suppliant should be heard, If he indeed a suppliant were Whose glance demanded audience there.
Deep stillness fell on all the crowd, From Claudius on his throne Down to the meanest slave that bowed At his imperial throne; Silent his fellow-captive's grief As fearless spoke the Island Chief.
"Think not, thou eagle Lord of Rome, And master of the world, Though victory's banner o'er thy dome In triumph now is furled,
I would address thee as thy slave, But as the bold should greet the brave!
"I might perchance, could I have deigned,
To hold a vassal's throne,
E'en now in Britain's isle have reigned
A king in name alone,
Yet holding, as thy meek ally, A monarch's mimic pageantry.
"Then through Rome's crowded streets to-day
I might have rode with thee, Not in a captive's base array,
But fetterless and free,
If freedom he could hope to find, Whose bondage is of heart and mind.
"But canst thou marvel that, freeborn, With heart and soul unquelled, Throne, crown, and sceptre I should scorn, By thy permission held?
Or that I should retain my right Till wrested by a conqueror's might?
"Rome, with her palaces and towers, By us unwished, unreft,
Her homely huts and woodland bowers To Britain might have left; Worthless to you their wealth must be, But dear to us, for they were free!
"I might have bowed before, but where Had been thy triumph now? To my resolve no yoke to bear
Thou ow'st thy laurelled brow; Inglorious victory had been thine, And more inglorious bondage mine.
"Now I have spoken, do thy will; Be life or death my lot, Since Britain's throne no more I fill, To me it matters not. My fame is clear; but on my fate Thy glory or thy shame must wait."
He ceased; from all around upsprung A murmur of applause,
For well had truth and freedom's tongue Maintained their holy cause.
Their conqueror was their captive then, He bade the slave be free again.
READ IN MUSIC HALL, 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 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.
I will divide my goods;
Call in the wretch and slave: None shall rule but the humble, And none but Toil shall have.
I will have never a noble, No lineage counted great; Fishers and choppers and ploughmen Shall constitute a state.
Go, cut down trees in the forest, And trim the straightest boughs; Cut down trees in the forest, And build me a wooden house.
Call the people together, The young men and the sires, The digger in the harvest-field, Hireling, and him that hires;
And here in a pine state-house They shall choose men to rule In every needful faculty, In church and state and school.
Lo, now if these poor men Can govern the land and sea, And make just laws below the sun, As planets faithful be.
And ye shall succor men ;
"T is nobleness to serve;
Help them who cannot help again : Beware from right to swerve.
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FA- And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
THE breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark On the wild New England shore.
That hellish foes confederate for his harm Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valley his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired,
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.
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."
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