Sound the trumpet stern and steady!
Sound the trumpet strong and high!
Country and Liberty!
Freedom and Victory!
These words shall be our cry,—
Frémont and Victory!
Sound now the trumpet cheerily!
Nor dream of Heaven’s forsaking
The issue of its making,
That Right with Wrong must try.
The cloud that hung so drearily
The Northern winds are breaking;
The Northern Lights are shaking
Their fire-flags in the sky.
Sound the signal of awaking;
Sound the onset wild and high!
Country and Liberty!
Freedom and Victory!
These words shall be our cry,—
Frémont and Victory!
THE QUAKERS ARE OUT
[A campaign song written to be sung at a Republican Mass Meeting held in Newburyport, Mass., October 11, 1860.]
Not vainly we waited and counted the hours,
The buds of our hope have all burst into flowers.
No room for misgiving—no loop-hole of doubt,—
We ’ve heard from the Keystone! The Quakers are out.
The plot has exploded—we ’ve found out the trick;
The bribe goes a-begging; the poison won’t stick.
When the Wide-awake lanterns are shining about,
The rogues stay at home, and the true men are out!
The good State has broken the cords for her spun;
Her oil-springs and water won’t fuse into one;
The Dutchman has seasoned with Freedom his krout,
And slow, late, but certain, the Quakers are out!
Give the flags to the winds! set the hills all aflame!
Make way for the man with the Patriarch’s name!
Away with misgiving—away with all doubt,
For Lincoln goes in, when the Quakers are out!
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
[This poem, originally printed in the “Atlantic Monthly,” was withheld from publication in his volumes by Mr. Whittier, in deference to living relatives of the hero of the poem. Death finally removed the restriction.]
Should you go to Centre Harbor,
As haply you some time may,
Sailing up the Winnepesaukee
From the hills of Alton Bay,—
Into the heart of the highlands,
Into the north wind free,
Through the rising and vanishing islands,
Over the mountain sea,—
To the little hamlet lying
White in its mountain fold,
Asleep by the lake and dreaming
A dream that is never told,—
And in the Red Hill’s shadow
Your pilgrim home you make,
Where the chambers open to sunrise,
The mountains, and the lake,—
If the pleasant picture wearies,
As the fairest sometimes will,
And the weight of the hills lies on you
And the water is all too still,—
If in vain the peaks of Gunstock
Redden with sunrise fire,
And the sky and the purple mountains
And the sunset islands tire,—
If you turn from in-door thrumming
And the clatter of bowls without,
And the folly that goes on its travels,
Bearing the city about,—
And the cares you left behind you
Come hunting along your track,
As Blue-Cap in German fable
Rode on the traveller’s pack,—
Let me tell you a tender story
Of one who is now no more,
A tale to haunt like a spirit
The Winnepesaukee shore,—
Of one who was brave and gentle,
And strong for manly strife,
Riding with cheering and music
Into the tourney of life.
Faltering and failing midway
In the Tempter’s subtle snare,
The chains of an evil habit
He bowed himself to bear.
Over his fresh young manhood
The bestial veil was flung,—
The curse of the wine of Circe,
The spell her weavers sung.
Yearly did hill and lakeside
Their summer idyls frame;
Alone in his darkened dwelling
He hid his face for shame.
The music of life’s great marches
Sounded for him in vain;
