Our First Ten Years in the Struggle for Liberty

    Ten years of trial and determined strife
Have trailed the shadows of their fleeting vans 
Down to the sunless grave!  years fraught with scenes
Of earnest conflict, since the banner-folds 
Of startled Freedom beat the air anew,
And the shrill trumpet of her bloodless war
Maddened the slumbering echoes, as we rushed 
Into the whirl of this great battle; — years 
That have stamped deep their impress on the age,
And lit high Hope in man's despairing heart.

    To him who, over conflict, and the jar 
Of clashing interests, with serene soul sees 
The certain good, forecast in mighty deeds 
Of love and daring for the weal of man, 
They have gone down in glory, and a light 
Whose beams are of Eternity; — though oft 
They swept in seeming gloom to us who toiled 
In the thick dust and hovering clouds of war.

    Hopes, dimmed by watching long and late, in vain,
For what they dreamed of; — truth, in freeness sown,
Yet springing to no harvest; — thwarted aims;
And the high good we sought unfound at last ; —
These, rising gloomily in our darker moods, 
Wring from impatience the despairing sigh:
But the calm soul, in hours of purer trust, 
Out of the volume of its hidden strength 
Reads lessons more divinely bright, and sees
Even on the clouds which hide the coming dawn,
The far-sent gloiries of the perfect day.

    What though our toil from no crushed bond-man's breast
Had flung the weight of years, nor in his soul 
Lighted one spark of the immortal joy?
Yet are the fetters, bound by solemn creeds, 
And law, and custom's soul-destroying fiend, 
Now from the nerv'd arm of awaken'd Thought 
Flung shivered; yet have the awakening words
Of a new freedom roused the daring mind 
To loftiest action, and the nobler pulse 
Of the love-beating heart, re-stirred to life.
We have not toiled in vain; but bounteously 
Hath God bestowed the unsought recompense!
Nor yet for him upon whose furrowed flesh 
Feeds the lank bloodhound, and the hungry lust 
That fattens ever on a brother's woe,
Have our deed-uttered prayers been idly made, 
Or pealed in vain the spirit's psalm of hope;
For they who guard the bondman's bolted door 
Have heard the heaving earthquake of Reform, 
And tremble fearfully with their trembling walls.

    Up from the prison-house our God hath cast
A glorious highway for his redeemed, 
And set his burning sentinel in the North, 
A starry Abdiel mid unstable hosts.
From moonless wilds amidst the low morass, 
Nightly the flying prisoner steers by light 
Of that lone watcher's lamp, though dimmed in mist;
While his keen eye, with earnest meaning full, 
Reads every sign in every stirring leaf.
Vainly the bloodhound now shall bay his track, 
For welcome doors, warm hearts, and brother-hands
Are open to receive him. Now his soul
May find brief rest where manly bosoms glow, 
And brave men, daring to be merciful, 
Hurl full defiance on the enslaving law.

    Ten years of conflict with the powers of wrong
Have passed, and yet our foe is in the field,—
A merciless demon, with armed multitudes 
Around his midnight banner; while of us 
Some have grown weary and laid down their arms ;
Some turned, with cruel treachery, to the foe, 
And stabbed their brethren; some, worn down and weak,
Centre their lives in every home-sent blow, 
And dart their souls through all their burning words;
And some, whose hearts were folded to our own
In pure and deep affection, have gone up 
Into the brightness of the Unrevealed,
Crowned martyrs, beckoning us to braver deeds —
Unseen, yet with us in their deathless love.

    Now we are left to battle on alone
Against proud legions: — ah! how earnestly, 
Could we but know with what dark weight these years
Swept over the lorn captive! — ten long years 
Of added wrong, to centuries which have plunged
Into the dark abyss, up-treasuring wrath 
Against a day of terror and revenge;
Years, whose dread foot-fall hath crushed, breath by breath,
The life from anguished bosoms, and trod out 
Soul, mind, and strength, and manhood, spark by spark.

    Was it for us to fold our hands, and dream
Of quiet fields and a serene repose,
While the flushed dragon of Oppression stalked,
Blood drunken even to madness, with his limbs 
Bathed in the crimson life-drops, by his hand 
Wrung with slow torture from ten thousand hearts?
Ah, no!— we found far other theme for thought 
And field for earnest action, when we saw 
The grim-browed Horror, in his traffic, tear 
The new-born infant from its mother's breast, 
And hurl it, wailing, to his hungry whelps, 
Whose cry for blood rings yet through all our land.
Not then had we soft words and pleasant wiles
To lull the monster to a false repose, 
While every hour gave to his iron jaws 
New victims, and no night came darkling down 
But with it brought more agonies than stars.
Not then had we the bland, complacent smile, 
And bow precise, for lily-fingered Pride 
In Church or State; who, crowned alike in each,
Set bloodhound Law upon its human prey, 
And sanctified the slaughter that it made.
We had no time to laud a gilded name, 
Or make one for ourselves, but in blunt truth 
Spoke out our word, regardless if it marred 
Our own or other's fame; for name and rest, 
And even life, in humble trust, were laid 
On Freedom's altar, in the strength of God.
There let them lie till fire come down from heaven,
Red-winged, and heave the offering to the sky;
For, from their ashes, phenix-like, shall spring 
Diviner life, new peace, and holier fame.

    Ten years of warfare! and our clanging arms 
Have struck live sparkles from the foeman's crest,
And bowed by times his haughtiness to dust;
Till now his howl of agony ascends 
With his torn victim's cry, as fiercely yet
He drives his bloody fangs into the flesh
Of Innocence, and clings, as clings the wolf 
To the young lamb the shepherd's hand would save!

    Fearlessly onward have the nobler souls 
In Freedom's host the tide of battle borne;
And on them rain the fiery darts, which pour 
From the mailed legions of the maddened foe.
Malignant Hate, by holy walls entrenched, 
Masked Treachery, and unblenching Scorn, hurl forth
Their dreadless malisons in Religion's name, 
To blast our vanguard in their bold career.
O God! forgive them, if amid the fierce 
Opposing onset, they forget by times 
The gentle charities we owe to all, 
Though darkly erring, even till bitterness 
Tinge the hot tide of their indignant hearts.
The tongueless Truth may be no longer dumb;
Upon their souls the mighty utterance weighs, 
Which, woe to them, if now they breathe it not.

    The Past, with all its glory and its toil;
The Present, speaking with its tongues of flame ;
The sublime Future, whose insatiate thirst 
To be is its best prophet;— all, as one, 
Bid their seer souls speak out their manly thought,
In fearless trust, for Liberty and God: — 
And now, what marvel if their words be stern, 
When law, and custom, and the multitude 
Would dam them back? — what miracle of wrong,
Though human weakness fling one dissonant jar 
Into the God-breathed music of their souls?
Go! proud contemners of the gallant free, 
Nor ask for harmony, when ye rudely smite 
The lute through which it trembles into life!

    Our years of struggle against giant Wrong 
Have not gone voiceless to the dark inane!
Their bold words thrill far down the soundless gulf
Of Being, stirring its eternal flood 
With tide-like aspirations, that o'erleap 
All bounds, exulting to be greatly free!
Hope springs, and kindles into living Trust;
Joy wreathes her garlands for the conquering soul;
Oppression trembles, and its own foul shade 
Creeps sure and chilling o'er its stolen light, 
As darkness treads upon the lessening moon.
Freedom shall yet redeem her heritage, — 
The living spirit; — even now her reign 
Dawns in bright promise to the faithful Seer!
No more, as once, she stands in mean attire, 
Leaned on the broken staff of her torn flag, 
Drenching its folds in tears; but in the array 
Of majesty, she comes with queenly tread 
Over the regal heights of holy Thought, 
In the soul-world, — her banner, like pure fire, 
Flung out, and fluttering in the gales of Truth!

    I thank thee, O my God, that I have lived 
Amid these years, and in this glorious dawn 
Of a more glorious Future; that my days 
Are of these giant times, whose every hour 
Is burdened with great prophecies, and deeds 
Of mightiness, whose far-extending arms 
Take hold upon the Infinite, and wed 
The sublime Present to Eternity!
Not wisely, nor with deep truth, has he read 
The record of the Ages whose divine 
Apocalypse is of this, who spurns To-day, 
To adore its germ in shadows of the Past.
To him the solemn Centuries speak in vain:
Their great out-gushings of the heroic soul, 
In deeds sublime, and miracles of thought, 
Were but fore-splendors of this living Now — 
This glorious promise of the great To-come!

    Happy are we, who faithfully may serve 
This present hour, — that out of it shall spring 
The goodness undelay'd, — and nurse this plant, 
Whose seed's seed verges to the Perfectness!

    Plainfield, Ct., October, 1843