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

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[51]
     How different is your Brookfield bull
From him who bellows from St. Peter's!
     Your pastoral rights and powers from harm,
Think ye, can words alone preserve them?
     Your wiser fathers taught the arm
And sword of temporal power to serve them.

Oh, glorious days, when Church and State
     Were wedded by your spiritual fathers!
And on submissive shoulders sat
     Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers.
No vile ‘itinerant ’ then could mar
     The beauty of your tranquil Zion,
But at his peril of the scar
     Of hangman's whip and branding-iron.

Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church
     Of heretic and mischief-maker,
And priest and bailiff joined in search,
     By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker!
The stocks were at each church's door,
     The gallows stood on Boston Common,
A Papist's ears the pillory bore,—
     The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!

Your fathers dealt not as ye deal
     With ‘ non-professing ’ frantic teachers;
They bored the tongue with red-hot steel,
     And flayed the backs of ‘female preachers.’
Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue,
     And Salem's streets could tell their story,
Of fainting woman dragged along,
     Gashed by the whip accursed and gory!