The Relic

Token of friendship true and tried,     From one whose fiery heart of youth     With mine has beaten, side by side,     For Liberty and Truth;     With honest pride the gift I take,     And prize it for the giver's sake.     But not alone because it tells     Of generous hand and heart sincere;     Around that gift of friendship dwells     A memory doubly dear;     Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought,     With that memorial frail inwrought!     Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold,     And precious memories round it cling,     Even as the Prophet's rod of old     In beauty blossoming:     And buds of feeling, pure and good,     Spring from its cold unconscious wood.     Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand     Plucked from its burning! let it be     Dear as a jewel from the hand     Of a lost friend to me!     Flower of a perished garland left,     Of life and beauty unbereft!     Oh, if the young enthusiast bears,     O'er weary waste and sea, the stone     Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs,     Or round the Parthenon;     Or olive-bough from some wild tree     Hung over old Thermopyl:     If leaflets from some hero's tomb,     Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary;     Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom     On fields renowned in story;     Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest,     Or the gray rock by Druids blessed;     Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing     Where Freedom led her stalwart kern,     Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle" blowing     On Bruce's Bannockburn;     Or Runnymede's wild English rose,     Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows!     If it be true that things like these     To heart and eye bright visions bring,     Shall not far holier memories     To this memorial cling?     Which needs no mellowing mist of time     To hide the crimson stains of crime!     Wreck of a temple, unprofaned;     Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod,     Lifting on high, with hands unstained,     Thanksgiving unto God;     Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading     For human hearts in bondage bleeding!     Where, midst the sound of rushing feet     And curses on the night-air flung,     That pleading voice rose calm and sweet     From woman's earnest tongue;     And Riot turned his scowling glance,     Awed, from her tranquil countenance!     That temple now in ruin lies!     The fire-stain on its shattered wall,     And open to the changing skies     Its black and roofless hall,     It stands before a nation's sight     A gravestone over buried Right!     But from that ruin, as of old,     The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying,     And from their ashes white and cold     Its timbers are replying!     A voice which slavery cannot kill     Speaks from the crumbling arches still!     And even this relic from thy shrine,     O holy Freedom! hath to me     A potent power, a voice and sign     To testify of thee;     And, grasping it, methinks I feel     A deeper faith, a stronger zeal.     And not unlike that mystic rod,     Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave,     Which opened, in the strength of God,     A pathway for the slave,     It yet may point the bondman's way,     And turn the spoiler from his prey