I SAID I stood upon thy grave, <br />My Mother State, when last the moon <br />Of blossoms clomb the skies of June. <br />And, scattering ashes on my head, <br />I wore, undreaming of relief, <br />The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. <br />Again that moon of blossoms shines <br />On leaf and flower and folded wing, <br />And thou hast risen with the spring! <br />Once more thy strong maternal arms <br />Are round about thy children flung, — <br />A lioness that guards her young! <br />No threat is on thy closëd lips, <br />But in thine eye a power to smite <br />The mad wolf backward from its light. <br />Southward the baffled robber's track <br />Henceforth runs only; hereaway, <br />The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. <br />Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, <br />His first low howl shall downward draw <br />The thunder of thy righteous law. <br />Not mindless of thy trade and gain, <br />But, acting on the wiser plan, <br />Thou 'rt grown conservative of man. <br />So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, <br />Dream-painted on the sightless eyes <br />Of him who sang of Paradise, — <br />The vision of a Christian man, <br />In virtue, as in stature great <br />Embodied in a Christian State. <br />And thou, amidst thy sisterhood <br />Forbearing long, yet standing fast, <br />Shalt win their grateful thanks at last; <br />When North and South shall strive no more, <br />And all their feuds and fears be lost <br />In Freedom's holy Pentecost.<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/arisen-at-last/
