Amid the turmoil and disgrace,
The voice was clear from first to last,
Of one who, in the desert place
Of barren counsels, held him fast
His shepherd's crook, and made it mace
To bear before the Great Event
Whose harbinger he chose to be,
And called on all men to repent,
And build a way from sea to sea,
For Freedom's full enfranchisement.
For Philip, to his conscience leal,
Conceived that God had chosen him
With Treason's sophistries to deal,
And grapple with the Anakim
Whose menace shook the common weal.
His pulpit smoked beneath his blows;
His voice was heard in hall and street;
A thousand friends became his foes,
And pews were empty or replete,
With passion's ebbs and overflows.
They trailed his good name in the mire;
They spat their venom in his eyes;
They taunted him with mad desire
For power, and gathered his replies
In braver words and fiercer fire,
He was a wolf, disguised in wool;
He was a viper in the breast;
He was a villain, or the tool
Of greater villains; at the best,
A blind enthusiast and fool!
As swelled the tempest, rose the man;
He turned to sport their brutal spleen;
And none could choose be slow to span
The difference that lay between
A Prospero and a Caliban!