Classic Poem

Served him right! How could he dare
To touch the idol of our day?
What if its shrine be red with blood?
Why, let him turn his eyes away.

Who dares dispute our right to bind
With galling chains the weak and poor?
To starve and crush the deathless mind,
Or hunt the slave from door to door?

Who dares dispute our right to sell
The mother from her weeping child?
To hush with ruthless stripes and blows
Her shrieks and sobs of anguish wild?

'Tis right to plead for heathen lands,
To send the Bible to their shores,
And then to make, for power and pelf,
A race of heathens at our door.

What holy horror filled our hearts —
It shook our church from dome to nave —
Our cheeks grew pale with pious dread,
To hear him breathe the name of slave.

Upon our Zion, fair and strong,
His words fell like a fearful blight;
We turned him from our silent fold;
And this we did to " serve him right "