Thou kind and venerable friend of man,Until the last few years of his life, Friend Hopper usually walked to and from his office twice a day, making about five miles in the whole; to which he sometimes added a walk in the evening, to visit children or friends, or transact some necessary business. When the weather was very unpleasant, he availed himself of the Harlem cars. Upon one of these occasions, it chanced that the long, ponderous vehicle was nearly empty. They had not proceeded far, when a very respectable-looking young woman beckoned for the car to stop. It did so; but when she set her foot on the step, the conductor, somewhat
In heart and spirit young, though old in years!
The tyrant trembles when thy name he hears,
And the slave joys thy honest face to scan.
A friend more true and brave, since time began,
Humanity has never found: her fears
By thee have been dispelled, and wiped the tears
Adown her sorrow-stricken cheeks that ran.
If like Napoleon's appears thy face,
Thy soul to his bears no similitude.
He came to curse, but thou to bless our race.
Thy hands are pure; in blood were his imbrued.
His memory shall be covered with disgrace,
But thine embalmed among the truly great and good.
This text is part of:
‘
[448]
anniversary week.’
It was on one of these occasions, that Garrison addressed to him the following sonnet:
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.