The World's Homage

If every tongue that speaks her praise     For whom I shape my tinkling phrase     Were summoned to the table,     The vocal chorus that would meet     Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,     From every land and tribe, would beat     The polyglots at Babel.     Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,     Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,     Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,     High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,     The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,     Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo,     Would shout, "We know the lady!"     Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom     And her he learned his gospel from     Has never heard of Moses;     Full well the brave black hand we know     That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe     That killed the weed that used to grow     Among the Southern roses.     When Archimedes, long ago,     Spoke out so grandly, "dos pou sto -     Give me a place to stand on,     I'll move your planet for you, now," -     He little dreamed or fancied how     The sto at last should find its pou     For woman's faith to land on.     Her lever was the wand of art,     Her fulcrum was the human heart,     Whence all unfailing aid is;     She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed,     Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,     The blood-red fountains were unsealed,     And Moloch sunk to Hades.     All through the conflict, up and down     Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,     One ghost, one form ideal;     And which was false and which was true,     And which was mightier of the two,     The wisest sibyl never knew,     For both alike were real.     Sister, the holy maid does well     Who counts her beads in convent cell,     Where pale devotion lingers;     But she who serves the sufferer's needs,     Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,     May trust the Lord will count her beads     As well as human fingers.     When Truth herself was Slavery's slave,     Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave     The rainbow wings of fiction.     And Truth who soared descends to-day     Bearing an angel's wreath away,     Its lilies at thy feet to lay     With Heaven's own benediction.