Speechless, motionless, unconscious And at night a fire was lighted, Farewell, O my Laughing Water! Come not back again to labor, Where the Famine and the Fever JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807; died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892] PROEM WRITTEN TO INTRODUCE THE FIRST GENERAL COLLECTION OF HIS POEMS I love the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. Yet, vainly in my quiet hours To breathe their marvelous notes I try; I feel them, as the leaves and flowers In silence feel the dewy showers, And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky. The rigor of a frozen clime, The harshness of an untaught ear, The jarring words of one whose rhyme Beat often Labor's hurried time, Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, Or softer shades of Nature's face, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. Nor mine the seerlike power to show The secrets of the heart and mind; To drop the plummet line below Our common world of joy and woe, A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. Yet here at least an earnest sense Of human right and weal is shown; A hate of tyranny intense, And hearty in its vehemence, As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. O Freedom! if to me belong Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song, Still with a love as deep and strong As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine! THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE Gone, gone, sold and gone, To the rice swamp dank and lone. O, when weary, sad, and slow, From the fields at night they go, Faint with toil, and racked with pain, There no brother's voice shall greet them; Where the tyrant's power is o'er, Gone, gone, sold and gone, Gone, gone, sold and gone, To the rice swamp dank and lone. ICHABOD WRITTEN UPON HEARING THAT DANIEL WEBSTER HAD MADE A SPEECH IN FAVOR OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn. Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying eyes, not scorn and wrath, Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage, Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night. |