THE age is dull and mean. Men creep, <br />Not walk; with blood too pale and tame <br />To pay the debt they owe to shame; <br />Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep <br />Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; <br />Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep <br />Six days to Mammon, one to Cant. <br />In such a time, give thanks to God, <br />That somewhat of the holy rage <br />With which the prophets in their age <br />On all its decent seemings trod, <br />Has set your feet upon the lie, <br />That man and ox and soul and clod <br />Are market stock to sell and buy! <br />The hot words from your lips, my own, <br />To caution trained, might not repeat; <br />But if some tares among the wheat <br />Of generous thought and deed were sown, <br />No common wrong provoked your zeal; <br />The silken gauntlet that is thrown <br />In such a quarrel rings like steel. <br />The brave old strife the fathers saw <br />For freedom calls for men again <br />Like those who battled not in vain <br />For England's Charter, Alfred's law; <br />And right of speech and trial just <br />Wage in your name their ancient war <br />With venal courts and perjured trust. <br />God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, <br />They touch the shining hills of day; <br />The evil cannot brook delay, <br />The good can well afford to wait. <br />Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; <br />Ye have the future grand and great, <br />The safe appeal of Truth to Time!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-righteousness-sake/
