Extract from an unfinished Poem

Cruel, self throned oppressors! if you must 
     Hold over man your tyrannous control, 
Then trample down his body to the dust;
     But never dare to touch the immortal soul—
That link mysterious which binds to God 
     Its moving tenement, the mortal clod.

It is a " holy and a deathless thing"—
     Which hands unhallowed may not guiltless touch,
When to the dust his godlike form ye bring,
     Pause lest ye tempt Jehovah's wrath too much
That he for vengeance bares his red right hand
     To deal destruction on a groaning land.

Already have ye won a damning shame
     To our fair honor and the black disgrace, 
That shrouds in foul eclipse our sinking fame, 
     Like a dark phantom haunts from place to place, 
Our wandering sons, from India's glowing clime,
     To distant Laplands everlasting rime.

And our fair land to foul oppression given,
     Ripe to the harvest of God's wrath; even now 
Stands forth condemned before all earth and heaven,
     "Destruction" written on her shameless brow;
And O, perchance the archangel now doth stand, 
     Prepared to reap, waiting the dread command.

While hovering vengeance o'er our guilty nation, 
     High in the chambers of the thunder throned,
Holds the red bolts of utter desolation, 
     To blast our glory, till our crimes atoned,
No more shall call the ruin from on high, 
     That lowers terrific in our darkening sky.

O, then Columbians! from your favored land, 
     Indignant spurn the foul oppressors rod,
Nor dare to war with deicidal hand
     Against the throne and majesty of God, 
Or soon the fearful doom shall be revealed
     "Thy days are numbered thy destruction sealed."