The Reformer (Poem)

The Reformer (Poem)

All grim and solid and brown with tan,
I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man
Along his path.

The Church beneath her trembling done
Essayed in vain her ghostly charm;
Wealth shook within his guilded home
With pale alarm.

Fraud from his secret chambers fled
Before the sunlight bursting in;
Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head
To drown the din.

"Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile;
That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;"
Meek Reverence kneeling in the aisle,
Cried out "Forbear!"

Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped for his old accustomed stone,
Leaned on his staff, and wept, to find
His seat o'erthrown.

Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes,
O'erhung with paly locks of gold,
"Why smite," he asked in a sad surprise,
"The fair, the old!"

Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke,
Yet nearer flash'd his axe's gleam;
Shuddering and sick of heart I woke,
As from a dream.

I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled--
The Water seemed the Builder too;
Upspringing from the ruined Old
I saw the New.

'Twas but the ruin of the bad--
The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Was living still.

Calm grew the brows of him I feared;
The frown which awed me passed away,
And left behind a smile which cheered
Like a breaking Day,

Green grew the grain on battle-plains,
O'er Swarded war-mounds grazed the cow;
The slave stood forging from his chains
The spade and plow.

Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay
And cottage windows, flower entwined,
Looked out upon the peaceful bay
And hills behind.

Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red,
The lights on brimming crystal fell,
Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head
And mossy well.

Through prison walls, like heaven-sent hope,
Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed;
And with the idle gallows-rope
The young child played.

Where the doomed victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours,
Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,
Came crowned with flowers.

Grown wiser from the lesson given,
I fear no longer, for I know
That where the share is deepest driven,
The best fruits grow.

The outworn right, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of Wrong alone--

These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
And fresher life the World shall draw
From their decay.

Oh! backward-looking son of time!--
The new is old, the old is new,
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.

So wisely taught the Indian seer:
Destroying Seva, forming Brahm,
Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear,
Are one, the same.

As idly as in that old day
Thou mournest, did thy sires repine,
So, in his time, thy child grown gray,
Shall sigh for thine.

Yet, not the less for them or thou
The eternal step of Progress beats
To that great anthem, calm and slow,
Which God repeats!

Take heart!--the Waster builds again--
A charmed life old goodness hath,
The tares may perish--but the grain
I not for death.

God works in all things; all obey
His first propulsion from the night;
Ho! wake and watch!--the world is gray
With morning light!

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Non-Slaveholder 2:1, pp. 22-3

1.1.1847