The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 2.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

Is it choice whereby the Parsee
     Kneels before his mothers fire?
In his black tent did the Tartar
     Choose his wandering sire?

He alone, whose hand is bounding
     Human power and human will,
Looking through each soul's surrounding,
     Knows its good or ill.

For thyself, while wrong and sorrow
     Make to thee their strong appeal,
Coward wert thou not to utter
     What the heart must feel.

Earnest words must needs be spoken
     When the warm heart bleeds or burns
With its scorn of wrong, or pity
     For the wronged, by turns.

But, by all thy nature's weakness,
     Hidden faults and follies known,
Be thou, in rebuking evil,
     Conscious of thine own.

Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty
     To thy lips her trumpet set,
But with harsher blasts shall mingle
     Wailings of regret. “