Jingua

                                        I.
Though to Submission's nobler virtue blind, 
     Well hast thou play'd a high, heroic part, 
     From the stern impulse of a lion heart,
Whose mighty throbbings could not be confined 
By the weak fetters Tyranny can bind.
     ‘T was nobly done! that deed, which tore apart 
     The chains which dragg'd thee to th' infernal mart,—
For there was struck a blow for human kind.
Let mail'd oppressors, deemed secure of harm,
     Learn how undreamed of may the thunders burst, —
What nerve is slumbering in the Negro's arm — 
     And how unseen, Revenge her fires hath nursed;
And let them tremble, when they hear thy name 
On dark lips whispered round, for lo, the corning flame!

                                        II.
Yet, for thyself, Brave Man, it had been well
     If thou hadst known that pure and better way, 
     Where trod the martyrs, bound to endless day, 
From rack, and fagot, and the dungeon's cell, —
Whom meek Forgiveness, with her quiet spell, 
     Made bold to suffer; for not only they 
     Who bravely do for man, what do they may, 
But they who DIE, show faith acceptable:
And it is better thou shouldst feel the rod
     Of wrong, than wield it; drink the cup of hate
Than pour it to thy brother man; for God 
     Is the Avenger, and he shall not wait;
But in the darkness of thy pagan mind,
We, for thy deed of wrath, some fit excuse shall find.

                                        III.
If it need be, when tyrants feel the blow 
     Of chastening vengeance, which rebukes the reign 
     Of sceptred wrong, strict justice to maintain 
Inviolate, — that man, man's deadliest foe, 
Should be the scourge of a just God; — yet wo
     To the avenger of the innocent slain, 
     By guilty slaughter; he shall plead in vain 
The unchanging fiat, which compelled to do:
Nor shall he charge on Heaven his deeds of ill;
     His own dark will hath fashioned out his fate, 
And on the impetuous billows of that will, 
     God rides in fire, to smite the guilty state:
To one like point converge man's crooked ways, 
And Love and Wrath at once, work out Jehovah's praise.