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THE PRESENT CRISIS

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

[This poem was written with special reference to the question of the annexation of Texas, but concerns the cause of anti-slavery generally, and indeed that of reform in any age. In the next to the last stanza Lowell refers to the fact that slavery was defended by arguments derived from the beliefs and deeds of our forefathers, who nevertheless were progressives in their day. The poem is here abbreviated by the omission of four stanzas.]

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,

And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb

To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime

Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame ;-
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

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Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave1 within,-
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.

1 Delphic cave. The seat of the greatest of oracles.

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By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,

Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned

One new word of that grand Credo1 which in prophet-hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.

For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;

Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return

To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our father's graves.

Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;

Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime?

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's;

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The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.

But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee

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They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires;
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
(1844)

I Credo, Creed, faith.

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The tumult of each sacked and burning village;

The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;

The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;

The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;

I miserere. Prayer for mercy (from the first word of Psalm 51, Latin version).

a Cimbric forest. In the region of Jutland, an ancient home of the Cimbri.

3 battle-bell. A bell which the Florentines of the 13th century used to take with them, on wheels, to the battle-field.

4 teocallis. Temples (of the Aztecs).

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My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;

The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,

Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, 41 Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring

Fresh every day to my untainted ears When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth Nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!

Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

50 Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,

Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look

On all these living pages of God's book. (1845)

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