For the priest's cant

Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse

My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse

Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico

With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent bolder,

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer? I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!

And in thy valleys, Agiochook!

The jackals of the negro-holder.

The God who made New Hampshire

Taunted the lofty land

With little men;

Small bat and wren

House in the oak:

If earth-fire cleave

The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
The Southern crocodile would grieve.

Virtue palters; Right is hence;

Freedom praised, but hid;

Funeral eloquence

Rattles the coffin-lid.

What boots thy zeal,

O glowing friend,

That would indignant rend

The Northland from the South?
Wherefore? to what good end?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still;-
Things are of the snake.

The horseman serves the horse,
The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

There are two laws discrete,

Not reconciled,

Law for man, and law for thing:
The last builds town and fleet,
But it runs wild,

And doth the man unking.

"Tis fit the forest fall,
The steep be graded,
The mountain tunnelled,

The sand shaded,

The orchard planted,

The glebe tilled,

The prairie granted,

The steamer built.

Let man serve law for man;
Live for friendship, live for love,
For truth's and harmony's behoof;
The state may follow how it can,
As Olympus follows Jove.

Yet do not I implore

The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,

Nor bid the unwilling senator

Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
Every one to his chosen work;-
Foolish hands may mix and mar;
Wise and sure the issues are.
Round they roll till dark is light,
Sex to sex, and even to odd;-
The over-god

Who marries Right to Might.
Who peoples, unpeoples,-
He who exterminates

Races by stronger races,
Black by white faces,-
Knows to bring honey
Out of the lion;
Grafts gentlest scion
On pirate and Turk.

The Cossack eats Poland,

Like stolen fruit;

Her last noble is ruined,

Her last poet mute:

Straight, into double band

The victors divide;

Half for freedom strike and stand;

The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

FREEDOM

ONCE I wished I might rehearse

Freedom's pæan in my verse,

That the slave who caught the strain
Should throb until he snapped his chain.

But the Spirit said, "Not so;

Speak it not, or speak it low;
Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,

Passion not to be expressed

But by heaving of the breast:

Yet, wouldst thou the mountain find
Where this deity is shrined,

Who gives to seas and sunset skies
Their unspent beauty of surprise,
And, when it lists him, waken can
Brute or savage into man;
Or, if in thy heart he shine,
Blends the starry fates with thine,
Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
Freedom's secret wilt thou know?—
Counsel not with flesh and blood;
Loiter not for cloak or food;

Right thou feelest, rush to do."

ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL

CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857

O TENDERLY the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire;

One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to town,
Our pulses are not less,

The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
Which children's voices bless.

For He that flung the broad blue fold
O'er-mantling land and sea,

One third part of the sky unrolled
For the banner of the free.

The men are ripe of Saxon kind
To build an equal state,—

To take the statute from the mind,
And make of duty fate.

United States! the ages plead,—

Present and Past in under-song,-
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.

For sea and land don't understand,
Nor skies without a frown

See rights for which the one hand fights
By the other cloven down.

Be just at home; then write your scroll
Of honor o'er the sea,

And bid the broad Atlantic roll,
A ferry of the free.

And, henceforth, there shall be no chain,
Save underneath the sea

The wires shall murmur through the main
Sweet songs of LIBERTY.

The conscious stars accord above,

The waters wild below,

And under, through the cable wove,

Her fiery errands go.

For He that worketh high and wise,
Nor pauses in his plan,

Will take the sun out of the skies
Ere freedom out of man.

BOSTON HYMN

READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863

THE word of the Lord by night

To the watching Pilgrims came,