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Title: Texas - The Pine-Tree
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier [
More Titles by Whittier]
The poem immediately following indicates the intense feeling of the friends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States.
Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846.
LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State's
rusted shield,
Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's
tattered field.
Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles
round the board,
Answering England's royal missive with a firm,
"Thus saith the Lord!"
Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle
in array!
What the fathers did of old time we their sons
must do to-day.
Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry
pedler cries;
Shall the good State sink her honor that your
gambling stocks may rise?
Would ye barter man for cotton? That your
gains may sum up higher,
Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children
through the fire?
Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right
a dream?
Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood
kick the beam?
O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in
Boston town
Smote the Province House with terror, struck the
crest of Andros down!
For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's
streets to cry,
"Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet
on Mammon's lie!
Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's
latest pound,
But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the
heart o' the Bay State sound!"
Where's the man for Massachusetts! Where's
the voice to speak her free?
Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her
mountains to the sea?
Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb
in her despair?
Has she none to break the silence? Has she none
to do and dare?
O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her
rusted shield,
And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's
tattered field
1840.
[The end]
John Greenleaf Whittier's poem: Texas - The Pine-tree
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