Classic Poem

Dot in the down-trod, slavish East,
Where king is god, and subject beast,
Where thousands starve that one may feast
On the plenty wrung from slavery;
Not where the Czar o'er millions rules,
Or Sultan grinds time-serving fools,
Or Chinese despot reigns with tools
Of priest-craft, fraud, and knavery, —

Not there the foulest despots reign;
No tyrant's serf e'er forged his chain,
Or freedom vilely sold for gain;
Such shame is not base-born
To us reserved the double shame,
Free-born to stain fair Freedom's fame,
Our fetters gilding with her name,
Herself our worthless scorn.

Our monarch claims no right divine;
No royal blood, no noble line,
Nor bold usurper's deeds define
His patent right of ruling.
By vulgar fraud, transparent guile,
Ill-gotten wealth, corruption vile,
Nor least by Worth's indiff'rence, while
Disdaining ballot-schooling.

By such, a tyrant mean and base,
Coward as all of tyrant race,
Freedom's shame and Man's disgrace,
Lives Mob, who rules the City;
Where triumphs Fraud, as Justice sleeps,
And Vice her shameless revels keeps,
And Death from Vice his harvest reaps,
Unchecked of ill-timed pity.

Who, watching manhood's progress, spies,
Look though he may with partial eyes,
Foul License wear fair Freedom's guise,
And timid Virtue cower,
As shrinks the serf from lash's sting,
In dread of Mob, the unclean thing —
Slave, self-elected, of the Ring,
And " manhood suffrage " power, —

Who, seeing this, as all men see
The rotten fruit of freedom's tree,
Yet keeps his faith in manhood, he
With boundless faith is gifted.
And he is right! For manhood still,
Though stained with wrong and tutored ill,
Its noble mission must fulfil,
To higher things uplifted.

As shrinks the night when morning breaks,
As thief in sight of gallows quakes,
So trembles Guilt when Justice wakes;
So Mob dethroned will falter,
When o'er Corruption's teeming field
Justice and Right the sickle wield,
To reap the sheaves of rankest yield
And bind them with a halter.