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

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[134]
     In the dark vassals of his will
He saw but Man and Woman!
     No hunter of God's outraged poor
His Roanoke valley entered;
     No trader in the souls of men
Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man
     Lay down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
     His brother-man stood weeping,
His latest thought, his latest breath,
     To Freedom's duty giving,
With failing tongue and trembling hand
     The dying blest the living.

Oh, never bore his ancient State
     A truer son or braver!
None trampling with a calmer scorn
     On foreign hate or favor.
He knew her faults, yet never stooped
     His proud and manly feeling
To poor excuses of the wrong
     Or meanness of concealing.

But none beheld with clearer eye
     The plague-spot o'er her spreading,
None heard more sure the steps of Doom
     Along her future treading.
For her as for himself he spake,
     When, his gaunt frame upbracing,
He traced with dying hand ‘Remorse!’
     And perished in the tracing.