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Sunday
For this Sunday that follows on the heels of July 4th, I share a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson that was written during the Civil War. The poem has God speaking to the Plymouth Rock pilgrims, both of the promise America represents and of its descent into slavery and war. “I am tired of kings,/I suffer them no more,” God says at one point and further on, “My angel,–his name is Freedom,–/ Choose him to be your king.”
Sometimes sounding like the Old Testament prophets, sometimes like Jesus, “God” articulates the democratic vision of a nation “of the people, by the people, and for the people” (to borrow from Lincoln):
And here in a pine statehouse
They shall choose men to rule
In every needful faculty,
In church, and state, and school.
The poem then turns to the issue of slavery, with God promising to “break your bonds and masterships,/ And I unchain the slave.” In doing so, human potential will be unleashed:
I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
As much as he is and doeth,
So much he shall bestow.
And:
Up! and the dusky race
That sat in darkness long.–
Be swift their feet as antelopes.
And as behemoth strong.
Incidentally, Emerson puzzles us for a moment by seeming to embrace one proposal that some floated: conflict could be avoided if slave owners were paid to free their slaves. (In point of fact, there was far too much money tied up in slavery for this to have been economically possible.) By all means, Emerson’s God says, “pay ransom to the owner,” before clarifying that the only true owners of the slaves are the slaves themselves. Therefore they are the ones who should be compensated.
Since the poem was written while war was raging, God calls for Union hearts to “carry my purpose forth,/ Which neither halts nor shakes.” God’s eye, meanwhile, is on those who lay “hands on another/ To coin his labor and sweat.” Just as “Battle Hymn of the Republic” talks of God loosing “the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword,” so Emerson’s God asserts,
My will fulfilled shall be,
For, in daylight or in dark,
My thunderbolt has eyes to see
His way home to the mark.
In the Civil War, of course, both sides contended that God was on their side, and slaveowners twisted the Bible to serve their ends. Similarly, many of those who voted for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which slashes programs for millions, loudly proclaim themselves as Christians. Emerson has such people in mind when he echoes Isaiah and Jesus. “Today unbind the captive” alludes to Isaiah 61:1:
The Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners
Meanwhile Jesus’s declaration that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28) is taken up when Emerson writes,
And ye shall succor men;
’T is nobleness to serve;
Help them who cannot help again:
Beware from right to swerve.
Think what a different country we would be if these Congressional Christians really took Christ’s teachings to heart.
Here’s the poem in its entirety. It’s long but reads quickly and is worth the effort.
Boston Hymn
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
[Read in Music Hall, January 1, 1863]
The word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the seaside,
And filled their hearts with flame.
God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.Think ye I made this ball
A field of havoc and war,
Where tyrants great and tyrants small
Might harry the weak and poor?My Angel,–his name is Freedom,–
Choose him to be your King;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.Lo! I uncover the land
Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers the statue
When he has wrought his best;
I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the seas,
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.
I will divide my goods;
Call in the wretch and slave:
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.I will have never a noble,
No lineage counted great;
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
Shall constitute a state.Go, cut down trees in the forest,
And trim the straightest boughs;
Cut down trees in the forest,
And build me a wooden house.Call the people together,
The young men and the sires,
The digger in the harvest field,
Hireling, and him that hires;And here in a pine statehouse
They shall choose men to rule
In every needful faculty,
In church, and state, and school.Lo, now! if these poor men
Can govern the land and sea,
And make just laws below the sun,
As planets faithful be.And ye shall succor men;
’T is nobleness to serve;
Help them who cannot help again:
Beware from right to swerve.I break your bonds and masterships,
And I unchain the slave:
Free be his heart and hand henceforth
As wind and wandering wave.I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
As much as he is and doeth,
So much he shall bestow.But, laying hands on another
To coin his labor and sweat,
He goes in pawn to his victim
For eternal years in debt.To-day unbind the captive,
So only are ye unbound;
Lift up a people from the dust,
Trump of their rescue, sound!Pay ransom to the owner,
And fill the bag to the brim.
Who is the owner? The slave is owner,
And ever was. Pay him.North! give him beauty for rags,
And honor, South! for his shame;
Nevada! coin thy golden crags
With Freedom’s image and name.Up! and the dusky race
That sat in darkness long,—
Be swift their feet as antelopes,
And as behemoth strong.Come, East and West and North,
By races, as snow-flakes,
And carry my purpose forth,
Which neither halts nor shakes.My will fulfilled shall be,
For, in daylight or in dark,
My thunderbolt has eyes to see
His way home to the mark.
