The Late Robbery and Its Import
Has honor died out of our land, and God
Out of His universe, that old grey Fraud
Can lift his head in triumph, glorified
By all the Serpent's brood, whose unclean breath
Sickens the air with poison, sowing wide
The rank contagion of their moral death?
What! have we sunk so low that infamy
Is infamous no longer? a sworn lie
No more a thing abhorrent? Is success
The only god we honor, though he climb,
Foul from the sewers of corruption's stye,
To thrones left spotless by the righteousness
Of the great fathers of a nobler time?
Have we breathed stench so long in neighborhood
Of the old shambles of that impious lie
Misnamed Democracy,
That every sense is deadened, evil is good,
And vile seems virtuous? Is robbery
The clearest road to honor and to power?
What man is this — what nestling of the brood
Of human vipers swarming at this hour,
Who dares annul the law of righteousness
Proclaimed in Sinai thunders, peal on peal,
Echoing, "Thou shalt not lie! Thou shalt not steal!"
A man, whose hope to win success,
Must "count out" God to make it less
Than utter blasphemy?
Backed by what allies, by what power is he
So swollen with arrogance he dares defy
That other "voice of God," the majesty
Of a free people — a voice that shall be heard
Out of the whirlwind, if we give no ear
To its low, whispered word,
Soft as the silence, as a clarion clear!
Sons of con-"fusion," brothers of the snake
That stings the freedman into flight or death,
And slays his pale defender, ye mistake
The temper of the north wind, the harsh breath
That makes our hills the columns of a temple
Sacred to Liberty, as the broad heavens, ample,
And filled with the hoarse anthem of the gales
In her perpetual worship! Treason fails
When it confronts the granite and the roar
Of ocean charging on our rock-bound shore.
Aye, dark conspirators, ye live too far
From the rank fens of the assassin crew,
Whose ballot is the bullet — too near the blue
Pavilion of that loyal star
Forever to Freedom true.
Star of the North, our symbol and our guide;
Too far from your reserves, whose arms are dyed
With woman's blood and man's, and all too near
The unconquered Pine Tree, whose leaves, never sere,
Hiss you to scorn in the free northern blast,
For even a moment's hope to win at last,
A moment's victory in your mad career!
This is no wrestle to maintain
A name or party for the passing hour
No conflict narrowed to our glorious Maine
Snatched at by law-defying power,
‘Tis the great battle, ever lost and won,
Of Light and Darkness, closed and rebegun,
Never to end till virtue reigns alone.
‘Tis the same rattlesnake erst coiled in black
On Georgia's rebel flag, that, scotched, comes back
To serve the cause lost once,
Forgetting for the nonce,
Our pines are loyal; 'tis the red garrote
Of desperate treason, closing on the throat
Of popular sovereignty, not for one lone State,
But for an empire glorious and great.
When for a moment It had hope to win,
You saw behind the mask the fatal grin
Of the old Ku Klux skull. But too elate
The mask slips off, and naked to the day,
The wrath of Freedom, In her own calm way,
Shail crush the spectre with an empire's weight.
Count out a people's ballot and defy
All visible powers below, and Power on high:
But know ye, robbers, while your peans begin,
God will be counted in!
The grand forbearance of a people great
Has saved a nation while it saved a State;
But you, dishonorers of a noble name,
Descend to swift oblivion or long shame.
The indignant virtue of a people, slow
To holy wrath, shall burn with whiter glow,
And smite your power to ashes. Not alone
Under our gallant Pine Tree, and the zone
Of Freedom's watch-fires — stars that never set
But over all the land where yet
Secrecy woos the assassin, and red gold
Caresses Murder — "fusion" of Fraud and Force
The twin conspirators,
That seek a realm to plunder and to hold!
- Title
- The Late Robbery and Its Import
Part of Late Robbery and Its Import, The