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.

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the
       instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's
       systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era. with a
       recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with
       mute lips apart,
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps
       beneath the Future's heart.

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and
       a chill.
Under continent to continent, the sense of
       coming ill,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his
       sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be
       drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in
       the nobler clod.

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.

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 't is
       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.

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-
       moments see,
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut
       through Oblivion's sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low
       foreboding cry
Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from
       whose feet earth's chaff must fly;
Never shows the choice momentous till the
       judgment hath passed by.

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 this
       iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's
       din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the
       Delphic cave within,--
"They enslave their children's children who
       make compromise with sin."

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the
       giant brood,
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have
       drenched the earth with blood,
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by
       our purer day,
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his
       miserable prey;--
Shall we guide his gory fingers where our
       helpless children play?

Then to side with Truth is noble when we
       share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is
       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 the 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.

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 Credo 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;
But we make their truth our falsehood,
       thinking that hath made us free,
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our
       tender spirits flee
"The rude grasp of that great Impulse which
       drove them across the sea.

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.