Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant. Bryant William Cullen

own. Yet while the spell

      Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee

      In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,

      Meet is it that my voice should utter forth

      Thy nobler triumphs; I will teach the world

      To thank thee. Who are thine accusers? – Who?

      The living! – they who never felt thy power,

      And know thee not. The curses of the wretch

      Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand

      Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,

      Are writ among thy praises. But the good —

      Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace,

      Upbraid the gentle violence that took off

      His fetters, and unbarred his prison-cell?

      Raise then the hymn to Death. Deliverer!

      God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed

      And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,

      The conqueror of nations, walks the world,

      And it is changed beneath his feet, and all

      Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm —

      Thou, while his head is loftiest and his heart

      Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand

      Almighty, thou dost set thy sudden grasp

      Upon him, and the links of that strong chain

      Which bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break

      Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.

      Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes

      Gather within their ancient bounds again.

      Else had the mighty of the olden time,

      Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned

      His birth from Libyan Ammon, smitten yet

      The nations with a rod of iron, and driven

      Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge,

      In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know

      No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose

      Only to lay the sufferer asleep,

      Where he who made him wretched troubles not

      His rest – thou dost strike down his tyrant too.

      Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge

      Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold.

      Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible

      And old idolatries; – from the proud fanes

      Each to his grave their priests go out, till none

      Is left to teach their worship; then the fires

      Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss

      O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images

      Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns,

      Chanted by kneeling multitudes, the wind

      Shrieks in the solitary aisles. When he

      Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all

      The laws that God or man has made, and round

      Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth, —

      Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven,

      And celebrates his shame in open day,

      Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off

      The horrible example. Touched by thine,

      The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold

      Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer,

      Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble

      Against his neighbor's life, and he who laughed

      And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame

      Blasted before his own foul calumnies,

      Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold

      His conscience to preserve a worthless life,

      Even while he hugs himself on his escape,

      Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,

      Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time

      For parley, nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.

      Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long

      Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,

      Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,

      And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life

      Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,

      And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,

      And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand

      Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,

      And he is warned, and fears to step aside.

      Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime

      Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand

      Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully

      Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts

      Drink up the ebbing spirit – then the hard

      Of heart and violent of hand restores

      The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.

      Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck

      The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,

      Are faithless to their dreadful trust at length,

      And give it up; the felon's latest breath

      Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;

      The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears,

      Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged

      To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make

      Thy penitent victim utter to the air

      The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,

      And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour

      Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.

      Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found

      On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee,

      Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth

      Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile

      For ages, while each passing year had brought

      Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world

      With their abominations; while its tribes,

      Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled,

      Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice

      Had smoked on many an altar, temple-roofs

      Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn:

      But thou, the great reformer of the world,

      Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud

      In their green pupilage, their lore half learned —

      Ere guilt had quite o'errun the simple heart

      God gave them at their birth, and blotted out

      His image. Thou dost mark them flushed with hope,

      As on the threshold of their vast designs

      Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them