The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

When votes are things of trade
     And force is argument,
Call back to Quincy's shade
     Thy old man eloquent.
Why leave him longer striving thus
     With the wild beasts of Ephesus!

Back from the Capital—
     It is no place for thee!
Beneath the arch of Heaven's blue wall,
     Thy voice may still be free!
What power shall chain thy utterance there,
     In God's free sun and freer air?

A voice is calling thee,
     From all the martyr graves
Of those stern men, in death made free,
     Who could not live as slaves.
The slumberings of thy honored dead
     Are for thy sake disquieted.

So let thy Faneuil Hall
     By freemen's feet be trod,
And give the echoes of its wall
     Once more to Freedom's God!
And in the midst unseen shall stand
     The mighty fathers of thy land.

Thy gathered sons shall feel
     The soul of Adams near,
And Otis with his fiery zeal,
     And Warren's onward cheer;
And heart to heart shall thrill as when
     They moved and spake as living men.

Not on Potomac's side,
     With treason in thy rear,
Can Freedom's holy cause be tried:
     Not there, my State, but here.
Here must thy needed work be done,
     The battle at thy hearth-stone won.

Proclaim a new crusade
     Against the foes within;
From bar and pulpit, press and trade,
     Cast out the shame and sin.
Then speak thy now-unheeded word,
     Its lightest whisper shall be heard.