Mene, Mene

This poem was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard on March 22, 1862.

"God hath numbered....and finished it." - Daniel 5, 26

Mene! But this was not the word he wrote
Upon the whitened wall,
The word which filled with dread, condemning light
The Babylonian hall.
He traced a word of love, a name of power:
"Jesus," he turned to say,
And dark eyes drank it in as some new sun
Had risen on their way.

They saw that only he whose fingers wrote
The Name all names above,
And those who dwelt upon it, eeys and lips
With such awe of love,
There came no shadow to the Southern sky,
No presence on the air,
No terror to those loving hearts, and yet-
Was there no angel there?

Unseen, unthought of, writing on the wall,
A spirit hand moved slow,
And traced the Mene! Mene! Numbered! Done!
That holy name below.
And from the hour the Chaldean despot sank
In helplessness of fear,
Those words have ushered in the doom of wrong,
Foretold the Avenger near.

So is it now! Write: Mene, numbered, past,
Tyrant, thy time to reign,
Thou shalt lie low amid the multitude
By Right and Justice slain.
Who weeps thy downfall? Not thy timid slave,
Whose eyes with joy grow dim,
Not saints whose lips have changed the dying prayer
For heaven's Glory-hymn.

Mene! Repeat it. Numbered, finished, past,
Downtrodden race of woe,
Are your long years of bitter servitude
Beneath a South sun's glow;
Your god has numbered every grief you felt,
Has counted every prayer,
And in the fullness of the time comes down -
Ay, Mene! Write it there.

Mene! What is burden to the North?
God numbers back again
To us each woe we added to the slave,
Each rivet in his chain.
Finished, the honor of His forbearing grave,
Yet willingly we drink
The wrath cup of his justice which our sins
Are filling to the brink.

A farther meaning to that word: God counts
Each Northern martyr's grave,
Each lip that speaks His truth against ourselves,
Each heart-beat for the slave.
Finished! The sin, the shame. North hands shall make
Atonement for the wrong,
North lips shall sanctify their country's life
By Freedom's deathless song.

Ellen