Moloch In State Street

The moon has set: while yet the dawn     Breaks cold and gray,     Between the midnight and the morn     Bear off your prey!     On, swift and still! the conscious street     Is panged and stirred;     Tread light! that fall of serried feet     The dead have heard!     The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins     Gushed where ye tread;     Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stains     Blush darkly red!     Beneath the slowly waning stars     And whitening day,     What stern and awful presence bars     That sacred way?     What faces frown upon ye, dark     With shame and pain?     Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark?     Is that young Vane?     Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on     With mocking cheer?     Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson,     And Gage are here!     For ready mart or favoring blast     Through Moloch's fire,     Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed     The Tyrian sire.     Ye make that ancient sacrifice     Of Man to Gain,     Your traffic thrives, where freedom dies,     Beneath the chain.     Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scorn     And hate, is near;     How think ye freemen, mountain-born,     The tale will hear?     Thank God! our mother State can yet     Her fame retrieve;     To you and to your children let     The scandal cleave.     Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press,     Make gods of gold;     Let honor, truth, and manliness     Like wares be sold.     Your hoards are great, your walls are strong,     But God is just;     The gilded chambers built by wrong     Invite the rust.     What! know ye not the gains of Crime     Are dust and dross;     Its ventures on the waves of time     Foredoomed to loss!     And still the Pilgrim State remains     What she hath been;     Her inland hills, her seaward plains,     Still nurture men!     Nor wholly lost the fallen mart;     Her olden blood     Through many a free and generous heart     Still pours its flood.     That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet,     Shall know no check,     Till a free people's foot is set     On Slavery's neck.     Even now, the peal of bell and gun,     And hills aflame,     Tell of the first great triumph won     In Freedom's name.     The long night dies: the welcome gray     Of dawn we see;     Speed up the heavens thy perfect day,     God of the free