Wonderful handwritten poem by John Greenleaf Whittier entitled “In the Old South Church, Boston 1677,” four total pages, 7.75 x 9.75, September 2, 1877. The poem reads, in full:
“She came and stood in the Old South Church / A wonder and a sign, / With the look the old-time sibyls wore / Half-crazed and half-divine.
Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound / Unclothed as the primal mother, / With limbs that trembled & eyes that burned / With afire she dared not smother!
Loose on her shoulders fell her hair / With sprinkled ashes gray; / She stood in the broad aisle strange & weird / As a soul at the judgment day!
And the minister paused in his sermon’s midst, / And the people held their breath; / For these were the words the maiden spoke / Through lips as pale as death:
‘Repent! repent! ere the Lord shall speak / In thunder & breaking seals! / Let all souls worship Him in the way / His light within reveals.
‘Thus saith the Lord! – with equal feet / All men my courts shall tread; / And priest & ruler no more shall eat / My people up as bread!’
She shook the dust from her naked feet / And her sackcloth closer drew; / And into the porch of the awe-hushed church / She passed like a ghost from view.
They whipped her away at the tail o’ the cart / (Small blame to the angry town!) / But the words she uttered that day nor fire / Could burn or water drown.
To-day the aisles of the ancient church / By equal feet are trod; / And the bell that swings in its belfry rings / Freedom to worship God!
And now whenever a wrong is done / It thrills the conscious walls; / The stone from the basement cries aloud / And the beam from the timber calls.
There are steeple-houses on every hand, / And pulpits that bless and ban, / And the Lord will not grudge the single church / That is set apart for man.
For in two commandments are all the law / And the prophets under the sun, / And the first is last and the last is first, / And the twain are verily one.
So, long as Boston shall Boston be, / And her Bay-tides rise & fall, / Shall Freedom stand in the Old South Church / And plead for the rights of all!”
In very good to fine condition, with two vertical folds to each page, and staining only to the first page.
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