hung dark the hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England
shore.

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came,--
Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of
fame:
Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,--
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of
lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang; this the stars heard and the sea!
And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang to the anthems of the
free!
The ocean-eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared;--this was their welcome
home.

There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there, away from their childhood's
land?
There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high, and the fiery heart of
youth.

What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?--They sought a faith's pure
shrine!
Aye, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found,--freedom to worship
God!

THE PRESENT CRISIS[25]

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching
breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from East to West;
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb,
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of time.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along
Round the earth's electric circle the swift flash of right or
wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or shame--
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or
blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

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