1866. TERMINUS It is time to be old, To take in sail: The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds And said: "No more! No farther spread Thy broad ambitious branches and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way, No word of haughty challenging, nor battle-bugle's peal, Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel. No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go, We hear thy threats, Virginia; thy stormy words and high Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank; man The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann: The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call 25 Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall? What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved We hunt your bondmen flying from Slavery's hateful hell? 35 From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves? Thank God not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow! Dream not, because her Pilgrim blood moves slow and calm and cool, All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day; But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone, And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown. Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air 45 With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains. Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, 50 Lower than plummet soundeth sink the Virginian name; Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame; 55 We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse. A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been, 60 40 And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high, A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply; Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang, The voice of free, broad Middlesex-of thousands as of one,- 65 70 From Norfolk's ancient villages; from Plymouth's rocky bound From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose 75 And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray, And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke 80 The voice of Massachusetts-of her free sons and daughters,- Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, 85 In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn; You 've spurned our kindest counsels, you 've hunted for our lives, And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves. We wage no war-we lift no arm-we fling no torch within 90 |