Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete

THE DISENTHRALLED.

     HE had bowed down to drunkenness,
     An abject worshipper
     The pride of manhood's pulse had grown
     Too faint and cold to stir;
     And he had given his spirit up
     To the unblessed thrall,
     And bowing to the poison cup,
     He gloried in his fall!

     There came a change—the cloud rolled off,
     And light fell on his brain—
     And like the passing of a dream
     That cometh not again,
     The shadow of the spirit fled.
     He saw the gulf before,
     He shuddered at the waste behind,
     And was a man once more.

     He shook the serpent folds away,
     That gathered round his heart,
     As shakes the swaying forest-oak
     Its poison vine apart;
     He stood erect; returning pride
     Grew terrible within,
     And conscience sat in judgment, on
     His most familiar sin.

     The light of Intellect again
     Along his pathway shone;
     And Reason like a monarch sat
     Upon his olden throne.
     The honored and the wise once more
     Within his presence came;
     And lingered oft on lovely lips
     His once forbidden name.

     There may be glory in the might,
     That treadeth nations down;
     Wreaths for the crimson conqueror,
     Pride for the kingly crown;
     But nobler is that triumph hour,
     The disenthralled shall find,
     When evil passion boweth down,
     Unto the Godlike mind.