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

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[92] Send out the summons East and West.
     And South and North, let all be there
Where he who pitied the oppressed
     Swings out in sun and air.
Let not a Democratic hand
     The grisly hangman's task refuse;
There let each loyal patriot stand,
     Awaiting slavery's command,
To twist the rope and draw the noose!

But vain is irony—unmeet
     Its cold rebuke for deeds which start
In fiery and indignant beat
     The pulses of the heart.
Leave studied wit and guarded phrase
     For those who think but do not feel;
Let men speak out in words which raise
     Where'er they fall, an answering blaze
Like flints which strike the fire from steel.

Still let a mousing priesthood ply
     Their garbled text and gloss of sin,
And make the lettered scroll deny
     Its living soul within:
Still let the place-fed, titled knave
     Plead robbery's right with purchased lips,
And tell us that our fathers gave
     For Freedom's pedestal, a slave,
The frieze and moulding, chains and whips!

But ye who own that Higher Law
     Whose tablets in the heart are set,
Speak out in words of power and awe
     That God is living yet!