Classic Poem

In Leitersburg along the mountain line
I fed my horses while I stopped to dine
Amidst the gravestones by a blood-red church
That like a red bird in a tree had perch
Upon a summit near the wagon-stand,
Where flows Antietam into Maryland.
The fleeing slaves here watched by bloody men
Unto their slavery were turned again
Just as they saw salvation's bright'ning day
Upon the sill of Pennsylvania.

A generation since then had gone by,
And all the landscape laughed in liberty:
Free schools and railways, factories and roads,
And on the mountain chateaus and abodes,
Orchards of fruit and never-tiring wheat
Made Freedom's evolution thrice complete.

Here Jacob Leiter in the West so far
Had pitched his town just after Braddock's war,
When southward moving o'er the mountain crown
The Germans like a bursting dam streamed down
And spread their hamlets o'er the valley thick
And made a Germany of Frederick.

Joseph, his heir, near three score years dwelt here
And died not till Emancipation year.
I read on slender monuments the life
Of Joseph Leiter and of Ann his wife
And drowsy in that summer noon I lay
Between their graves and dreamed this dream away.

" What sort of nigger is this we see
Riding a horse like a white man free?
Come show your pass ere you go that way! "
The man said only, " Parsee. Bombay. "

" He's a Indian nigger but he will sell;
Virginia niggers are bred too well:
We'll cross Potomick with him 'fore day! "
He sobbed and muttered, " Parsee. Bombay. "

They pulled him down and they took his horse,
The fierce kidnappers without remorse;
They chained his feet as they hid him away
And gagged him, mocking, " Parsee. Bombay. "

He drew a drug from his straight, black hair
And swallowed it with a gurgling prayer
To the Sun that was setting, fiery red,
And he fell in the shamble stony dead.

They found him there whom they meant to sell
Cold as a clapperless, copper bell
In the shop on the undertaker's lot, —
Joseph Leiter, who knew it not.

Joseph Leiter had born a son
That day as the light was almost done;
At night he came to his carpenter's shed
To finish a coffin for some one dead;

His lantern fell on the sulphur face
Of a stranger of some alien race
And the dead lips bubbled or seemed to say:
" Me poor Parsee from me home, Bombay. "

Joseph Leiter the dead man put
In the coffin; the lid he shut.
Thus to his wife his pity ran:
" They'll steal a coffin who steal a man! "

Two days passed and the dead forgot,
Light one night was in Leiter's cot;
Soft he looked and the dead man stood
Out in his kitchen cooking food.

Thinking he saw a ghost or witch,
Leiter's heart had a deadly twitch:
" Guebre fire, " did the dead man say,
" Ormuzd raised me! Parsee. Bombay. "

Panther men through the window pane
Watched the Parsee living again:
" Where is he? " they asked his host.
" He is dead and ye saw his ghost. "

In his coffin at noon they saw
Him still dead who had found no law;
In the churchyard his pit was dug,
He had swallowed a second drug.

Their dead neighbor the clods immerse,
While on the undertaker's hearse
O'er the mountain, the midnight through,
Leiter drove with the dark Hindoo.

Still in the West the dusk of night
Covered the vale from the mountain's height;
Gettysburg in its East repose
Bloomed with the sunrise like a rose.

Rose from stupor the tranc'd Parsee;
Worshipp'd the sun on his bended knee;
Cooled in the West his eyeball far,
Shuddering, " Ahriman! SLAVERY ! WAR! — "

Bathed in the summit's springs with bliss,
Gave unto Leiter a freeman's kiss,
Slipped a ruby his finger upon
Saying " Keep it for little son! "

" Nay, " spoke Leiter, whose greed was strong,
" We have treated a stranger wrong.
You that are risen like Lazarus
Owe no present, like that, to us! "

Putting the jewel back in his hair,
Gorgeously glowing a planet there,
The Parsee like a Prince did say;
" Iran will give to thy son , B OMBAY !

" I have seen where the inland seas
Drop in the West like our great Ganges
Into thy Hindostan of wheat,
Where shall arise Calcutta's seat;

" Send thy son to that infant mart!
Teach him the Parsee's merchant art!
He shall beget one beautiful!
She shall marry the Great Mogul! "

There they parted but back, anon,
Leiter bending above his son,
Little fingers felt in his hair,
Clutching a ruby tangled there.

" This was meant for our baby's dower;
That dark man was a man of power:
With the jewel the boy shall grow,
Lighted by wisdom to Chicago! "

Long but sure was the infant's fate;
He was a merchant where trade was great;
From his life like a lance's sheen,
Grew a daughter that looked a queen.

She was loved by a statesman wise, —
Mighty India was his prize;
Millions held in the famine's sway
Knelt as she landed at Bombay.

Tall and fair from her hair to her feet
She was saluted: " Lady of wheat!
Spirit of bread! as we die we pray
Be our white lily, Queen of Bombay! "

But the bride of the Viceroy sees
One, most aged of the Parsees,
Piping to her like the croon of the wind,
" Lady of Leitersburg! Ruby of Ind!

" Red as the ruby thy veins they wave
Through the star'd midnight where groped the white slave!
Thou and thy country are messaged with light!
Day of the Guebre! Freedom from Night! "