John Greenleaf Whittier Poems

I SAID I stood upon thy grave,
My Mother State, when last the moon
Of blossoms clomb the skies of June.
And, scattering ashes on my head,
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From purest wells of English undefiled
None deeper drank than he, the New World's child,
Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke
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To kneel before some saintly shrine,
To breathe the health of airs divine,
Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,
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'Jove means to settle
Astraea in her seat again,
And let down his golden chain
An age of better metal.'
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O Dearly loved!
And worthy of our love! No more
Thy aged form shall rise before
The bushed and waiting worshiper,
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The shadows grow and deepen round me,
I feel the deffall in the air;
The muezzin of the darkening thicket,
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John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day:
'I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.
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NOT unto us who did but seek
The word that burned within to speak,
Not unto us this day belong
The triumph and exultant song.
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A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
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JUST God! and these are they
Who minister at thine altar, God of Right!
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay
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