Assistants, Halberdiers, Marshal, etc.
The Scene is in Boston in the year 1665.
TO-NIGHT we strive to read, as we may best, | |
| This city, like an ancient palimpsest; | |
| And bring to light, upon the blotted page, | |
| The mournful record of an earlier age, | |
| That, pale and half effaced, lies hidden away | 5 |
| Beneath the fresher writing of to-day. | |
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| Rise, then, O buried city that hast been; | |
| Rise up, rebuilded in the painted scene, | |
| And let our curious eyes behold once more | |
| The pointed gable and the pent-house door, | 10 |
| The Meeting-house with leaden-latticed panes, | |
| The narrow thoroughfares, the crooked lanes! | |
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| Rise, too, ye shapes and shadows of the Past, | |
| Rise from your long-forgotten graves at last; | |
| Let us behold your faces, let us hear | 15 |
| The words ye uttered in those days of fear! | |
| Revisit your familiar haunts again,— | |
| The scenes of triumph, and the scenes of pain, | |
| And leave the footprints of your bleeding feet | |
| Once more upon the pavement of the street! | 20 |
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| Nor let the Historian blame the Poet here, | |
| If he perchance misdate the day or year, | |
| And group events together, by his art, | |
| That in the Chronicles lie far apart; | |
| For as the double stars, though sundered far, | 25 |
| Seem to the naked eye a single star, | |
| So facts of history, at a distance seen, | |
| Into one common point of light convene. | |
| |
| “Why touch upon such themes?” perhaps some friend | |
| May ask, incredulous; “and to what good end? | 30 |
| Why drag again into the light of day | |
| The errors of an age long passed away?” | |
| I answer: “For the lesson that they teach: | |
| The tolerance of opinion and of speech. | |
| Hope, Faith, and Charity remain,—these three; | 35 |
| And greatest of them all is Charity.” | |
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| Let us remember, if these words be true, | |
| That unto all men Charity is due; | |
| Give what we ask; and pity, while we blame, | |
| Lest we become copartners in the shame, | 40 |
| Lest we condemn, and yet ourselves partake, | |
| And persecute the dead for conscience’ sake. | |
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| Therefore it is the author seeks and strives | |
| To represent the dead as in their lives, | |
| And lets at times his characters unfold | 45 |
| Their thoughts in their own language, strong and bold; | |
| He only asks of you to do the like; | |
| To hear him first, and, if you will, then strike. | |
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