Daily national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1854, 1854-01-05
LITERARY MISCELLANY.
For the National Era.
THE VOICES.
BY JOHN q. WHITTIER.


THE VOICES.
BY JOHN q. WHITTIER.
Why urge the long, unequal flight,
Since Truth has fallen in the street.
Or lift anew the trampled light,
Quenched by tho Needless millions feet
Give DER the thankless task forsake
The fools who know not III from good;
Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take
Thine case among the multitude.
1.-Two out myself; with others share
Thy proper life no morej assume
The unconcern of sun and air,
For life or death, or blight or bloom.
I" The mountain pine looks calmly on
The fires that scourge the plains below,
Nor heeds the eagle in the sun
Tho small birds piping in the snow!
- Tho world is God's-not thine; lot Him
Work out change, if change must be-;
The hand that planted best can trim
And nurse the old unfruitful tree."
So spake tho Tempter, whom tho light
Of sun and stars had left tho sky.
I listened, through the cloud and night.
And heard, methought, q voice reply:
Thy task may we'll seem over hard,
Who soatterost, In q thankless soil,
Thy life a. ssed, with no reward
Save that which Duty gives to Toll
Not wholly is thy heart resigned
To Heavens benign and just decree,
That. linking thee with oil thy kind,
Transmits their joys and griefs to thoo
Break of that sacred chain. and turn
Back ON thyself thy love and care;
Be thon thine own mean idol, burn
Faith. Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.
" Released from that fratornal law
Which shares tho common bale and bliss;
No saddcr lot could Folly draw,
Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this
The meal unshared Is food unbIest;
Thou hoard at in vain what love should spend !;
Self-oass is pain; thy only rest
Is labor for a worthy end
"A toll that grows with what it yields.
And scatters to its own increase,
And hears, while serving outward fields,
The harvest-song Of inward peace.
"Frse-lpped the liberal streanlets run, ~
Free shines for all the healthful ray;
The still pool stagnates in the sun,
The lurid earth-frs haunts decay!
What is it that tho crowd requite
Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies?
And but to faith. and not to sight,
The walls Of Freedoms temple rise?
Yet do thy work; il shall succeed
In thine or in another's day;
And, If denied the yictor's need
Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.
Faith shares the futures promise; Loves
Self-ofering IL triumph won
And each good thought or action moves
The dark world nearer to the sun.
"Then faint not, falter not, nor plead
Thy weakness; truth itself is strong;
The lions strength, the eagles speed,
Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.
Thy nature, which, through fire and food,
To place or gain finds ont its way,
Hath power TO seek the highest good,
And duty's hottest call obey
What though in darkness aud in doubt,
And haunted by sense of sin,
Thou strivest with the foe without,
And many traitor thought within,
!" As when upon some week Of storms
The Sabbath morn shines calm and fair,
And, from the breaking shadow, forms
Tho curtains Of its tent Of prayer,
So, hspIy, whom thy task shall end,
The wrong shall loso itself in right.
And all thy week day darkness blend
With the long Sabbath Of tho light!n