Explore "To Delaware" by John Greenleaf Whittier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Written during the discussion in the Legislature of that State, in the winter of 1846-47, of a bill for the abolition of slavery.
THRICE welcome to thy sisters of the East, / To the strong tillers of a rugged home, / With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, / And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's foam; / And to the young nymphs of the golden West, / Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairie bloom, / Trail in the sunset, -- O redeemed and blest, / To the warm welcome of thy sisters come! / Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white bay / Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from her plains, / And the great lakes, where echo, free alway, / Moaned never shoreward with the clank of chains, / Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing spray, / And all their waves keep grateful holiday. / And, smiling on thee through her mountain rains, / Vermont shall bless thee; and the granite peaks, / And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall wear / Their snow-crowns brighter in the cold, keen air; / And Massachusetts, with her rugged cheeks / O'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to thee, / When, at thy bidding, the electric wire / Shall tremble northward with its words of fire; / Glory and praise to God! another State is free! / 1847.