The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 3.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

---

[16]
     Has he not, with the light of heaven
Broadly around him, made the same?
     Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven,
And gloried in his ghastly shame?
     Kneeling amidst his brother's blood,
To offer mockery unto God,
     As if the High and Holy One
Could smile on deeds of murder done!
     As if a human sacrifice
Were purer in His holy eyes,
     Though offered up by Christian hands,
Than the foul rites of Pagan lands!

Sternly, amidst his household band,
     His carbine grasped within his hand,
The white man stood, prepared and still,
     Waiting the shock of maddened men,
Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when
     The horn winds through their caverned hill
And one was weeping in his sight,
     The sweetest flower of all the isle,
The bride who seemed but yesternight
     Love's fair embodied smile.
And, clinging to her trembling knee,
     Looked up the form of infancy,
With tearful glance in either face
     The secret of its fear to trace.

‘Ha! stand or die!’ The white man's eye
     His steady musket gleamed along,
As a tall Negro hastened nigh,
     With fearless step and strong.