When first I saw our banner wave Above the nation's council-hall, I heard beneath its marble wall The clanking fetters of the slave! In the foul market-place I stood, And saw the Christian mother sold,...
In the old days (a custom laid aside With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent Their wisest men to make the public laws. And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound...
Talk not of sad November, when a day Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon, And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June, Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray. ...
Bland as the morning breath of June The southwest breezes play; And, through its haze, the winter noon Seems warm as summer's day. The snow-plumed Angel of the North Has dropped his icy spear;...
We saw the slow tides go and come, The curving surf-lines lightly drawn, The gray rocks touched with tender bloom Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn.
Before my drift-wood fire I sit, And see, with every waif I burn, Old dreams and fancies coloring it, And folly's unlaid ghosts return. O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft...
Friend of the Slave, and yet the friend of all; Lover of peace, yet ever foremost when The need of battling Freedom called for men To plant the banner on the outer wall;...
O Dearly loved! And worthy of our love! No more Thy aged form shall rise before The bushed and waiting worshiper, In meek obedience utterance giving To words of truth, so fresh and living,...
I would the gift I offer here Might graces from thy favor take, And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere, On softened lines and coloring, wear The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake....
Bearer of Freedom's holy light, Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod, The foe of all which pains the sight, Or wounds the generous ear of God! Beautiful yet thy temples rise,...
Night on the city of the Moor! On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore, On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock The narrow harbor gates unlock, On corsair's galley, carack tall,...
"Put up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped...
"Long since, a dream of heaven I had, And still the vision haunts me oft; I see the saints in white robes clad, The martyrs with their palms aloft; But hearing still, in middle song,...
In calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung,...
The tossing spray of Cocheco's fall Hardened to ice on its rocky wall, As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn, Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn! ...
The evil days have come, the poor Are made a prey; Bar up the hospitable door, Put out the fire-lights, point no more The wanderer's way. For Pity now is crime; the chain Which binds our States...
It is done! Clang of bell and roar of gun Send the tidings up and down. How the belfries rock and reel! How the great guns, peal on peal, Fling the joy from town to town!