Classic Poem

I never was a slave — a robber took
My substance — what of that? The law my rights —
And that? I still was free and had my book —
All nature. And I learned from during hights
How silence is majestic, and invites
In admiration far beholding eyes!
And heaven taught me, with her starry nights,
How deepest speech unuttered often lies,
And that Jehovah's lessons mostly he implies.

XII

My birth-place where the scrub-wood thicket grows,
My mother bound, and daily toil my dower;
I envy not the halo title throws
Around the birth of any; place and power
May be but empty phantoms of an hour, —
For me, I find a more enduring bliss:
Rejoicing fields, green woods — the stream — the flower,
To me have speech, and born of God, are his
Interpreters, proclaiming what true greatness is.

XIII

Where'er I roam, in all the earth abroad,
I find this written in the human chart:
A love of Nature is the love of God,
And love of man 's the religion of the heart.
Man's right to think, in his majestic part
In his Creator's works — to others bless —
This is the point whence god-like actions start,
And open, conscientious manliness
Is the divinest image mortals can possess.

XIV

Almighty fairness smiling heaven portends,
In sympathy the elements have tears;
The meekest flow'rs are their Creator's friends,
The hungry raven He in patience hears;
And e'en the sparrow's wishes reach His ears!
But when He treads the tyrant in His wrath,
And to crush wrong the horn of battle rears,
The pestilence goes forth on him who hath
Transgressed, and empires fall imploring in His path.

XV

A god-like man is fair to fellow-men,
And gentleness is native in his soul!
He sees no fault in man till forced, and then
He wonders 't were not greater. He is whole
In valor, mercy, love, and self-control.
Virtue is his religion — Liberty
His shrine — honest contentment is his goal
And sum of bliss, and his life aims to be
In nothing excellent, save that which leaves man free.

XVI

I envy not the man whose want of brains
Supplies a roost for race-hate's filthy brood!
The little eminence his soul attains
Is more the pity when 'tis understood,
That he, perhaps, has done the best he could!
Tread not upon him just to see him squirm!
Pity, forsooth! to crawl is his best good,
And 'tis his nat'ral way, I do affirm;
So, let him crawl his fill, he is a harmless worm!