Spoke well the Grecian, when he said that poems Were the high laws that sway’d a nation’s mind-
Voices that live on echoes-
Brief and prophetic proems,
Opening the great heart-book of human kind!
Songs are a nation’s pulses, which discover
If the great body be as nature will’d;
Songs are the spasms of soul,
Telling us when men suffer:
Dead is the nation’s heart whose songs are still’d.
Lo! the firm poet is the Truth’s dispenser-
Standing, like Heaven’s high-priest, before its shrine;
And his high thoughts, like incense,
From his soul’s golden censer, Rise to God’s throne-a sacrifice divine!
Stands he like Samuel, darkly prophesying,-
Threats he, like Nathan, humbling Judah’s king,-
Comes he as John The Baptist,
‘Mid the wild desert crying,-
Still from his soul the impatient voice must spring.
Speaks he to senseless tyrants, who with scourges
Would curb the ocean of the human heart!-
Over their whips and fetters,
Bush his bold songs, like surges:
Forth from the caverns of deep thought they start.
Still for the People-still for Man and Freedom-
Boldly his Titan words the bard must speak;
Till his too long lost birthright
Shall be regain’d by Edom-
Till, to restore that right, Jacob shall Esau seek!
(Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne)
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