’•S' 
American Agriculturist, May 19,1923 
437 
The Present Crisis 
By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
W HEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the 
broad earth’s aching breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from 
east to west. 
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him 
climb 
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime 
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. 
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, 
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;— 
Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children 
play? 
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous 
throe. 
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro; 
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart. 
And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the 
Future’s heart. 
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched 
crust. 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be 
just; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside. 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, 
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 
So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill. 
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill. 
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God 
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod. 
Till a corpse crawls round un¬ 
buried, delving in the nobler 
clod. 
Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes,—they were souls that 
stood alone. 
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone. 
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam 
incline 
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith devine. 
By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme 
design. 
For mankind are one in spirit, 
and an instinct bears 
along, 
Round the earth’s electric circle, 
the swift flash of right or 
wrong; 
Whether conscious or uncon¬ 
scious, yet Humanity’s vast 
frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fi¬ 
bres feels the gush of joy or 
shame;— 
In the gain or loss of one race all 
the rest have equal claim. 
Read It Out Loud ! 
print the g-r^at poem by James Russell Lowell at 
this time because the world to-day stands at the most 
momentous cross-roads of its history. Although written 
December 18, 1844, before the Civil War crisis, this poem 
applies with even stronger force to the world’s present 
crisis. Never before have men been called upon to make 
decisions of such far-reaching importance to future civili¬ 
zation as now. The time is here when 
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment 
to decide 
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good 
or evil side.”—The Editors. 
By the light of burning heretics 
Christ’s bleeding feet I 
track. 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever 
with the cross that turns 
not back. 
And these mounts of anguish 
number how each generation 
learned 
One new word of that grand 
Credo which in prophet- 
hearts hath burned 
Since the first man stood God- 
conquered with his face to 
heaven upturned. 
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; 
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom 
or blight. 
Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right, 
And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that 
light. 
For humanity sweeps onward: 
where to-day the martyr 
stands. 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots 
burn. 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden 
urn. 
Hast thou chosen, 0 my people, on whose party thou shalt stand. 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against 
our land? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong. 
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng 
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 
’Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our father’s graves, 
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;— 
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men be¬ 
hind their time? 
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth 
Rock sublime? 
Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see. 
That, likegpeaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion’s 
sea; 
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry 
Of those Crises, God’s stern winnowers, from whose feet 
earth’s chaff must fly; 
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath 
passed by. 
They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, 
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past’s; 
But we make their truth our falsehood thinking that hath 
made us free, 
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee 
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across 
the sea. 
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record 
One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the 
Word; 
Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne,— 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to 
our sires. 
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom’s new-lit altar-fires; 
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste 
to slay. 
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away 
To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day ? 
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great. 
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate> 
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din. 
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— 
“They enslave their children’s children who make compromise 
with sin.’’ 
Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, 
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the 
earth with blood. 
New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good 
uncouth; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast 
of Truth; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pil¬ 
grims be. 
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate 
winter sea. 
Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted 
key. 
* 
