TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS.
Reading edition
The thirty-ninth congress was that which met in 1565 after the close of the war, when it was charged with the great question of reconstruction; the uppermost subject in men's minds was the standing of those who had recently been in arms against the Union and their relations to the freedmen.
O PEOPLE-CHOSEN! are ye not Likewise the chosen of the Lord, To do His will and speak His word?
From the loud thunder-storm of war Not man alone hath called ye forth, But He, the God of all the earth!
The torch of vengeance in your hands He quenches; unto Him belongs The solemn recompense of wrongs.
Enough of blood the land has seen, And not by cell or gallows-stair Shall ye the way of God prepare.
Say to the pardon-seekers: Keep Your manhood, bend no suppliant knees, Nor palter with unworthy pleas.
Above your voices sounds the wail Of starving men; we shut in vain * Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain. **
What words can drown that bitter cry? What tears wash out the stain of death? What oaths confirm your broken faith?
From you alone the guaranty Of union, freedom, peace, we claim; We urge no conqueror's terms of shame.
Alas! no victor's pride is ours; We bend above our triumphs won Like David o'er his rebel son.
Be men, not beggars. Cancel all By one brave, generous action; trust Your better instincts, and be just.
Make all men peers before the law, Take hands from off the negro's throat, Give black and white an equal vote.
Keep all your forfeit lives and lands, But give the common law's redress To labor's utter nakedness.
Revive the old heroic will; Be in the right as brave and strong As ye have proved yourselves in wrong.
Defeat shall then be victory, Your loss the wealth of full amends, And hate be love, and foes be friends.
Then buried be the dreadful past, Its common slain be mourned, and let All memories soften to regret.
Then shall the Union's mother-heart Her lost and wandering ones recall, Forgiving and restoring all,—
And Freedom break her marble trance Above the Capitolian dome, Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome home November, 1865.
* Andersonville prison. ** The massacre of Negro troops at Fort Pillow.
THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG.
IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame, So terrible alive, Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became The wandering wild bees' hive; And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore Those jaws of death apart, In after time drew forth their honeyed store To strengthen his strong heart.
Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept To wake beneath our sky; Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept Back to its lair to die, Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds, A stained and shattered drum Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds, The wild bees go and come.
Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel, They wander wide and far, Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell, Through vales once choked with war. The low reveille of their battle-drum Disturbs no morning prayer; With deeper peace in summer noons their hum Fills all the drowsy air.
And Samson's riddle is our own to-day, Of sweetness from the strong, Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away From the rent jaws of wrong. From Treason's death we draw a purer life, As, from the beast he slew, A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife The old-time athlete drew! 1868.