At length the time of trial came,
    And they were tried as gold is tried. 
    Their peace of life went up in flame,
    And what was good was vilified,
    And what was blameless came to blame.

  IX.

  The Southern sky was dun with cloud;
  And looming lurid o’er its edge
  The brows of awful forms were bowed,
  That forged in flame the fateful wedge
  Which waited in the angry shroud

  The banner of the storm unfurled,
  And all the powers of death arrayed
  In black battalions, to be hurled
  Down through the rack—­a blazing blade—­
  To cleave the realm, and shake the world!

  The North was full of nameless dread;
  Wild portents flamed from out the pole;
  Old scars on Freedom’s bosom bled,
  And sick at heart and vexed of soul
  She tossed in fever on her bed!

  Pale Commerce hid her face and whined;
  The arms of Toil were paralyzed;
  The wise were of divided mind,
  And those who counselled and advised
  Were sightless leaders of the blind.

  Men lost their faith in good and great;
  No captain sprang, or prophet bard,
  To win their trust, and save the state
  From the wild storm that, like a pard,
  On quivering haunches lay in wait!

  The loyal only were not brave;
  E’en peace became a cringing dog;
  The patriot paltered like a knave,
  And partisan anti demagogue
  Quarrelled o’er Freedom’s waiting grave.

  X.

  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!