HYMN

Written for the celebration of the third anniversary of British emancipation at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, first of August, 1837.

O HOLY FATHER! just and true Are all Thy works and words and ways, And unto Thee alone are due Thanksgiving and eternal praise!

As children of Thy gracious care, We veil the eye, we bend the knee, With broken words of praise and prayer, Father and God, we come to Thee.

For Thou hast heard, O God of Right, The sighing of the island slave; And stretched for him the arm of might, Not shortened that it could not save. The laborer sits beneath his vine, The shackled soul and hand are free; Thanksgiving! for the work is Thine! Praise! for the blessing is of Thee!

And oh, we feel Thy presence here, Thy awful arm in judgment bare! Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear; Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer. Praise! for the pride of man is low, The counsels of the wise are naught, The fountains of repentance flow; What hath our God in mercy wrought?

Speed on Thy work, Lord God of Hosts And when the bondman's chain is riven, And swells from all our guilty coasts The anthem of the free to Heaven, Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led, As with Thy cloud and fire before, But unto Thee, in fear and dread, Be praise and glory evermore.



THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD

INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

GONE, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air; Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. There no mother's eye is near them, There no mother's ear can hear them; Never, when the torturing lash Seams their back with many a gash, Shall a mother's kindness bless them, Or a mother's arms caress them. Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Oh, when weary, sad, and slow, From the fields at night they go, Faint with toil, and racked with pain, To their cheerless homes again, There no brother's voice shall greet them; There no father's welcome meet them. Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of play; From the cool spring where they drank; Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank; From the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there; Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone; Toiling through the weary day, And at night the spoiler's prey. Oh, that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant's power is o'er, And the fetter galls no more Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. By the holy love He beareth; By the bruised reed He spareth; Oh, may He, to whom alone All their cruel wrongs are known, Still their hope and refuge prove, With a more than mother's love. Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

1838.



PENNSYLVANIA HALL.

Read at the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, May 15, 1838. The building was erected by an association of gentlemen, irrespective of sect or party, "that the citizens of Philadelphia should possess a room wherein the principles of Liberty, and Equality of Civil Rights, could be freely discussed, and the evils of slavery fearlessly portrayed." On the evening of the 17th it was burned by a mob, destroying the office of the Pennsylvania Freeman, of which I was editor, and with it my books and papers.

NOT with the splendors of the days of old, The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold; No weapons wrested from the fields of blood, Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood, And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law;

Nor blazoned car, nor banners floating gay, Like those which swept along the Appian Way, When, to the welcome of imperial Rome, The victor warrior came in triumph home, And trumpet peal, and shoutings wild and high, Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian sky; But calm and grateful, prayerful and sincere, As Christian freemen only, gathering here, We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall, Pillar and arch, entablature and wall, As Virtue's shrine, as Liberty's abode, Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God Far statelier Halls, 'neath brighter skies than these, Stood darkly mirrored in the AEgean seas, Pillar and shrine, and life-like statues seen, Graceful and pure, the marble shafts between; Where glorious Athens from her rocky hill Saw Art and Beauty subject to her will; And the chaste temple, and the classic grove, The hall of sages, and the bowers of love, Arch, fane, and column, graced the shores, and gave Their shadows to the blue Saronic wave; And statelier rose, on Tiber's winding side, The Pantheon's dome, the Coliseum's pride, The Capitol, whose arches backward flung The deep, clear cadence of the Roman tongue, Whence stern decrees, like words of fate, went forth To the awed nations of a conquered earth, Where the proud Caesars in their glory came, And Brutus lightened from his lips of flame! Yet in the porches of Athena's halls, And in the shadow of her stately walls, Lurked the sad bondman, and his tears of woe Wet the cold marble with unheeded flow; And fetters clanked beneath the silver dome Of the proud Pantheon of imperious Rome. Oh, not for hint, the chained and stricken slave, By Tiber's shore, or blue AEgina's wave, In the thronged forum, or the sages' seat, The bold lip pleaded, and the warm heart beat; No soul of sorrow melted at his pain, No tear of pity rusted on his chain!

But this fair Hall to Truth and Freedom given, Pledged to the Right before all Earth and Heaven, A free arena for the strife of mind, To caste, or sect, or color unconfined, Shall thrill with echoes such as ne'er of old From Roman hall or Grecian temple rolled; Thoughts shall find utterance such as never yet The Propylea or the Forum met. Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife Shall win applauses with the waste of life; No lordly lictor urge the barbarous game, No wanton Lais glory in her shame. But here the tear of sympathy shall flow, As the ear listens to the tale of woe; Here in stern judgment of the oppressor's wrong Shall strong rebukings thrill on Freedom's tongue, No partial justice hold th' unequal scale, No pride of caste a brother's rights assail, No tyrant's mandates echo from this wall, Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All! But a fair field, where mind may close with mind, Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind; Where the high trust is fixed on Truth alone, And bonds and fetters from the soul are thrown; Where wealth, and rank, and worldly pomp, and might, Yield to the presence of the True and Right.

And fitting is it that this Hall should stand Where Pennsylvania's Founder led his band, From thy blue waters, Delaware!—to press The virgin verdure of the wilderness. Here, where all Europe with amazement saw The soul's high freedom trammelled by no law; Here, where the fierce and warlike forest-men Gathered, in peace, around the home of Penn, Awed by the weapons Love alone had given Drawn from the holy armory of Heaven; Where Nature's voice against the bondman's wrong First found an earnest and indignant tongue; Where Lay's bold message to the proud was borne; And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's manly scorn! Fitting it is that here, where Freedom first From her fair feet shook off the Old World's dust, Spread her white pinions to our Western blast, And her free tresses to our sunshine cast, One Hall should rise redeemed from Slavery's ban, One Temple sacred to the Rights of Man!

Oh! if the spirits of the parted come, Visiting angels, to their olden home If the dead fathers of the land look forth From their fair dwellings, to the things of earth, Is it a dream, that with their eyes of love, They gaze now on us from the bowers above? Lay's ardent soul, and Benezet the mild, Steadfast in faith, yet gentle as a child, Meek-hearted Woolman, and that brother-band, The sorrowing exiles from their "Father land," Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's bowers of vine, And the blue beauty of their glorious Rhine, To seek amidst our solemn depths of wood Freedom from man, and holy peace with God; Who first of all their testimonial gave Against the oppressor, for the outcast slave, Is it a dream that such as these look down, And with their blessing our rejoicings crown? Let us rejoice, that while the pulpit's door Is barred against the pleaders for the poor; While the Church, wrangling upon points of faith, Forgets her bondmen suffering unto death; While crafty Traffic and the lust of Gain Unite to forge Oppression's triple chain, One door is open, and one Temple free, As a resting-place for hunted Liberty! Where men may speak, unshackled and unawed, High words of Truth, for Freedom and for God. And when that truth its perfect work hath done, And rich with blessings o'er our land hath gone; When not a slave beneath his yoke shall pine, From broad Potomac to the far Sabine When unto angel lips at last is given The silver trump of Jubilee in Heaven; And from Virginia's plains, Kentucky's shades, And through the dim Floridian everglades, Rises, to meet that angel-trumpet's sound, The voice of millions from their chains unbound; Then, though this Hall be crumbling in decay, Its strong walls blending with the common clay, Yet, round the ruins of its strength shall stand The best and noblest of a ransomed land— Pilgrims, like these who throng around the shrine Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine! A prouder glory shall that ruin own Than that which lingers round the Parthenon. Here shall the child of after years be taught The works of Freedom which his fathers wrought; Told of the trials of the present hour, Our weary strife with prejudice and power; How the high errand quickened woman's soul, And touched her lip as with a living coal; How Freedom's martyrs kept their lofty faith True and unwavering, unto bonds and death; The pencil's art shall sketch the ruined Hall, The Muses' garland crown its aged wall, And History's pen for after times record Its consecration unto Freedom's God!



THE NEW YEAR.

Addressed to the Patrons of the Pennsylvania Freeman.

THE wave is breaking on the shore, The echo fading from the chime Again the shadow moveth o'er The dial-plate of time!

O seer-seen Angel! waiting now With weary feet on sea and shore, Impatient for the last dread vow That time shall be no more!

Once more across thy sleepless eye The semblance of a smile has passed: The year departing leaves more nigh Time's fearfullest and last.

Oh, in that dying year hath been The sum of all since time began; The birth and death, the joy and pain, Of Nature and of Man.

Spring, with her change of sun and shower, And streams released from Winter's chain, And bursting bud, and opening flower, And greenly growing grain;

And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm, And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed, And voices in her rising storm; God speaking from His cloud!

And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves, And soft, warm days of golden light, The glory of her forest leaves, And harvest-moon at night;

And Winter with her leafless grove, And prisoned stream, and drifting snow, The brilliance of her heaven above And of her earth below;

And man, in whom an angel's mind With earth's low instincts finds abode, The highest of the links which bind Brute nature to her God;

His infant eye bath seen the light, His childhood's merriest laughter rung, And active sports to manlier might The nerves of boyhood strung!

And quiet love, and passion's fires, Have soothed or burned in manhood's breast, And lofty aims and low desires By turns disturbed his rest.

The wailing of the newly-born Has mingled with the funeral knell; And o'er the dying's ear has gone The merry marriage-bell.

And Wealth has filled his halls with mirth, While Want, in many a humble shed, Toiled, shivering by her cheerless hearth, The live-long night for bread.

And worse than all, the human slave, The sport of lust, and pride, and scorn! Plucked off the crown his Maker gave, His regal manhood gone!

Oh, still, my country! o'er thy plains, Blackened with slavery's blight and ban, That human chattel drags his chains, An uncreated man!

And still, where'er to sun and breeze, My country, is thy flag unrolled, With scorn, the gazing stranger sees A stain on every fold.

Oh, tear the gorgeous emblem down! It gathers scorn from every eye, And despots smile and good men frown Whene'er it passes by.

Shame! shame! its starry splendors glow Above the slaver's loathsome jail; Its folds are ruffling even now His crimson flag of sale.

Still round our country's proudest hall The trade in human flesh is driven, And at each careless hammer-fall A human heart is riven.

And this, too, sanctioned by the men Vested with power to shield the right, And throw each vile and robber den Wide open to the light.

Yet, shame upon them! there they sit, Men of the North, subdued and still; Meek, pliant poltroons, only fit To work a master's will.

Sold, bargained off for Southern votes, A passive herd of Northern mules, Just braying through their purchased throats Whate'er their owner rules.

And he, (2) the basest of the base, The vilest of the vile, whose name, Embalmed in infinite disgrace, Is deathless in its shame!

A tool, to bolt the people's door Against the people clamoring there, An ass, to trample on their floor A people's right of prayer!

Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast, Self-pilloried to the public view, A mark for every passing blast Of scorn to whistle through;

There let him hang, and hear the boast Of Southrons o'er their pliant tool,— A new Stylites on his post, "Sacred to ridicule!"

Look we at home! our noble hall, To Freedom's holy purpose given, Now rears its black and ruined wall, Beneath the wintry heaven,

Telling the story of its doom, The fiendish mob, the prostrate law, The fiery jet through midnight's gloom, Our gazing thousands saw.

Look to our State! the poor man's right Torn from him: and the sons of those Whose blood in Freedom's sternest fight Sprinkled the Jersey snows,

Outlawed within the land of Penn, That Slavery's guilty fears might cease, And those whom God created men Toil on as brutes in peace.

Yet o'er the blackness of the storm A bow of promise bends on high, And gleams of sunshine, soft and warm, Break through our clouded sky.

East, West, and North, the shout is heard, Of freemen rising for the right Each valley hath its rallying word, Each hill its signal light.

O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray, The strengthening light of freedom shines, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, And Vermont's snow-hung pines!

From Hudson's frowning palisades To Alleghany's laurelled crest, O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades, It shines upon the West.

Speed on the light to those who dwell In Slavery's land of woe and sin, And through the blackness of that bell, Let Heaven's own light break in.

So shall the Southern conscience quake Before that light poured full and strong, So shall the Southern heart awake To all the bondman's wrong.

And from that rich and sunny land The song of grateful millions rise, Like that of Israel's ransomed band Beneath Arabia's skies:

And all who now are bound beneath Our banner's shade, our eagle's wing, From Slavery's night of moral death To light and life shall spring.

Broken the bondman's chain, and gone The master's guilt, and hate, and fear, And unto both alike shall dawn A New and Happy Year.

1839.



THE RELIC.

Written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work of Pennsylvania Hall which the fire had spared.

TOKEN of friendship true and tried, From one whose fiery heart of youth With mine has beaten, side by side, For Liberty and Truth; With honest pride the gift I take, And prize it for the giver's sake.

But not alone because it tells Of generous hand and heart sincere; Around that gift of friendship dwells A memory doubly dear; Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought, With that memorial frail in wrought!

Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold, And precious memories round it cling, Even as the Prophet's rod of old In beauty blossoming: And buds of feeling, pure and good, Spring from its cold unconscious wood.

Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand Plucked from its burning! let it be Dear as a jewel from the hand Of a lost friend to me! Flower of a perished garland left, Of life and beauty unbereft!

Oh, if the young enthusiast bears, O'er weary waste and sea, the stone Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs, Or round the Parthenon; Or olive-bough from some wild tree Hung over old Thermopylae:

If leaflets from some hero's tomb, Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary; Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom On fields renowned in story; Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest, Or the gray rock by Druids blessed;

Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing Where Freedom led her stalwart kern, Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle" blowing On Bruce's Bannockburn; Or Runnymede's wild English rose, Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows!

If it be true that things like these To heart and eye bright visions bring, Shall not far holier memories To this memorial cling Which needs no mellowing mist of time To hide the crimson stains of crime!

Wreck of a temple, unprofaned; Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod, Lifting on high, with hands unstained, Thanksgiving unto God; Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading For human hearts in bondage bleeding;

Where, midst the sound of rushing feet And curses on the night-air flung, That pleading voice rose calm and sweet From woman's earnest tongue; And Riot turned his scowling glance, Awed, from her tranquil countenance!

That temple now in ruin lies! The fire-stain on its shattered wall, And open to the changing skies Its black and roofless hall, It stands before a nation's sight, A gravestone over buried Right!

But from that ruin, as of old, The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, And from their ashes white and cold Its timbers are replying! A voice which slavery cannot kill Speaks from the crumbling arches still!

And even this relic from thy shrine, O holy Freedom! Hath to me A potent power, a voice and sign To testify of thee; And, grasping it, methinks I feel A deeper faith, a stronger zeal.

And not unlike that mystic rod, Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, Which opened, in the strength of God, A pathway for the slave, It yet may point the bondman's way, And turn the spoiler from his prey.

1839.



THE WORLD'S CONVENTION OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION,

HELD IN LONDON IN 1840.

Joseph Sturge, the founder of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, proposed the calling of a world's anti-slavery convention, and the proposal was promptly seconded by the American Anti-Slavery Society. The call was addressed to "friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime."

YES, let them gather! Summon forth The pledged philanthropy of Earth. From every land, whose hills have heard The bugle blast of Freedom waking; Or shrieking of her symbol-bird From out his cloudy eyrie breaking Where Justice hath one worshipper, Or truth one altar built to her;

Where'er a human eye is weeping O'er wrongs which Earth's sad children know; Where'er a single heart is keeping Its prayerful watch with human woe Thence let them come, and greet each other, And know in each a friend and brother!

Yes, let them come! from each green vale Where England's old baronial halls Still bear upon their storied walls The grim crusader's rusted mail, Battered by Paynim spear and brand On Malta's rock or Syria's sand! And mouldering pennon-staves once set Within the soil of Palestine, By Jordan and Gennesaret; Or, borne with England's battle line, O'er Acre's shattered turrets stooping, Or, midst the camp their banners drooping, With dews from hallowed Hermon wet, A holier summons now is given Than that gray hermit's voice of old, Which unto all the winds of heaven The banners of the Cross unrolled! Not for the long-deserted shrine; Not for the dull unconscious sod, Which tells not by one lingering sign That there the hope of Israel trod; But for that truth, for which alone In pilgrim eyes are sanctified The garden moss, the mountain stone, Whereon His holy sandals pressed,— The fountain which His lip hath blessed,—

Whate'er hath touched His garment's hem At Bethany or Bethlehem, Or Jordan's river-side. For Freedom in the name of Him Who came to raise Earth's drooping poor, To break the chain from every limb, The bolt from every prison door! For these, o'er all the earth hath passed An ever-deepening trumpet blast, As if an angel's breath had lent Its vigor to the instrument.

And Wales, from Snowden's mountain wall, Shall startle at that thrilling call, As if she heard her bards again; And Erin's "harp on Tara's wall" Give out its ancient strain, Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withal,— The melody which Erin loves, When o'er that harp, 'mid bursts of gladness And slogan cries and lyke-wake sadness, The hand of her O'Connell moves! Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill, And mountain hold, and heathery bill, Shall catch and echo back the note, As if she heard upon the air Once more her Cameronian's prayer And song of Freedom float. And cheering echoes shall reply From each remote dependency, Where Britain's mighty sway is known, In tropic sea or frozen zone; Where'er her sunset flag is furling, Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curling; From Indian Bengal's groves of palm And rosy fields and gales of balm, Where Eastern pomp and power are rolled Through regal Ava's gates of gold; And from the lakes and ancient woods And dim Canadian solitudes, Whence, sternly from her rocky throne, Queen of the North, Quebec looks down; And from those bright and ransomed Isles Where all unwonted Freedom smiles, And the dark laborer still retains The scar of slavery's broken chains!

From the hoar Alps, which sentinel The gateways of the land of Tell, Where morning's keen and earliest glance On Jura's rocky wall is thrown, And from the olive bowers of France And vine groves garlanding the Rhone,— "Friends of the Blacks," as true and tried As those who stood by Oge's side, And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong, Shall gather at that summons strong; Broglie, Passy, and he whose song Breathed over Syria's holy sod, And, in the paths which Jesus trod, And murmured midst the hills which hem Crownless and sad Jerusalem, Hath echoes whereso'er the tone Of Israel's prophet-lyre is known.

Still let them come; from Quito's walls, And from the Orinoco's tide, From Lima's Inca-haunted halls, From Santa Fe and Yucatan,— Men who by swart Guerrero's side Proclaimed the deathless rights of man, Broke every bond and fetter off, And hailed in every sable serf A free and brother Mexican! Chiefs who across the Andes' chain Have followed Freedom's flowing pennon, And seen on Junin's fearful plain, Glare o'er the broken ranks of Spain The fire-burst of Bolivar's cannon! And Hayti, from her mountain land, Shall send the sons of those who hurled Defiance from her blazing strand, The war-gage from her Petion's hand, Alone against a hostile world.

Nor all unmindful, thou, the while, Land of the dark and mystic Nile! Thy Moslem mercy yet may shame All tyrants of a Christian name, When in the shade of Gizeh's pile, Or, where, from Abyssinian hills El Gerek's upper fountain fills, Or where from Mountains of the Moon El Abiad bears his watery boon, Where'er thy lotus blossoms swim Within their ancient hallowed waters; Where'er is beard the Coptic hymn, Or song of Nubia's sable daughters; The curse of slavery and the crime, Thy bequest from remotest time, At thy dark Mehemet's decree Forevermore shall pass from thee; And chains forsake each captive's limb Of all those tribes, whose hills around Have echoed back the cymbal sound And victor horn of Ibrahim.

And thou whose glory and whose crime To earth's remotest bound and clime, In mingled tones of awe and scorn, The echoes of a world have borne, My country! glorious at thy birth, A day-star flashing brightly forth, The herald-sign of Freedom's dawn! Oh, who could dream that saw thee then, And watched thy rising from afar, That vapors from oppression's fen Would cloud the upward tending star? Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which heard, Awe-struck, the shout which hailed thy dawning, Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and king, To mock thee with their welcoming, Like Hades when her thrones were stirred To greet the down-cast Star of Morning! "Aha! and art thou fallen thus? Art thou become as one of us?"

Land of my fathers! there will stand, Amidst that world-assembled band, Those owning thy maternal claim Unweakened by thy, crime and shame; The sad reprovers of thy wrong; The children thou hast spurned so long.

Still with affection's fondest yearning To their unnatural mother turning. No traitors they! but tried and leal, Whose own is but thy general weal, Still blending with the patriot's zeal The Christian's love for human kind, To caste and climate unconfined.

A holy gathering! peaceful all No threat of war, no savage call For vengeance on an erring brother! But in their stead the godlike plan To teach the brotherhood of man To love and reverence one another, As sharers of a common blood, The children of a common God Yet, even at its lightest word, Shall Slavery's darkest depths be stirred: Spain, watching from her Moro's keep Her slave-ships traversing the deep, And Rio, in her strength and pride, Lifting, along her mountain-side, Her snowy battlements and towers, Her lemon-groves and tropic bowers, With bitter hate and sullen fear Its freedom-giving voice shall hear; And where my country's flag is flowing, On breezes from Mount Vernon blowing, Above the Nation's council halls, Where Freedom's praise is loud and long, While close beneath the outward walls The driver plies his reeking thong; The hammer of the man-thief falls, O'er hypocritic cheek and brow The crimson flush of shame shall glow And all who for their native land Are pledging life and heart and hand, Worn watchers o'er her changing weal, Who fog her tarnished honor feel, Through cottage door and council-hall Shall thunder an awakening call. The pen along its page shall burn With all intolerable scorn; An eloquent rebuke shall go On all the winds that Southward blow; From priestly lips, now sealed and dumb, Warning and dread appeal shall come, Like those which Israel heard from him, The Prophet of the Cherubim; Or those which sad Esaias hurled Against a sin-accursed world! Its wizard leaves the Press shall fling Unceasing from its iron wing, With characters inscribed thereon, As fearful in the despot's ball As to the pomp of Babylon The fire-sign on the palace wall!

And, from her dark iniquities, Methinks I see my country rise Not challenging the nations round To note her tardy justice done; Her captives from their chains unbound; Her prisons opening to the sun But tearfully her arms extending Over the poor and unoffending; Her regal emblem now no longer

A bird of prey, with talons reeking, Above the dying captive shrieking, But, spreading out her ample wing, A broad, impartial covering, The weaker sheltered by the stronger Oh, then to Faith's anointed eyes The promised token shall be given; And on a nation's sacrifice, Atoning for the sin of years, And wet with penitential tears, The fire shall fall from Heaven!

1839.



MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk, Va., in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, who was seized in Boston without warrant at the request of James B. Grey, of Norfolk, claiming to be his master. The case caused great excitement North and South, and led to the presentation of a petition to Congress, signed by more than fifty thousand citizens of Massachusetts, calling for such laws and proposed amendments to the Constitution as should relieve the Commonwealth from all further participation in the crime of oppression. George Latimer himself was finally given free papers for the sum of four hundred dollars.

THE blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way, Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay. No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal, Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go; Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow; And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far, A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high, Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky; Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor here, No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank; Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank; Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms, Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms; Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam, They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array? How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall? When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of "Liberty or Death!"

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved; If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn, Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell; Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell; We gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves, From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow; The spirit of her early time is with her even now; Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow and calm and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!

All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day; But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone, And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!

Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.

Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold; Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his market value, when The maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce the slaver's den!

Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name; Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame; Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair universe; We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse.

A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been, Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men: The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.

And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of gray, How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke; How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke!

A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high, A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply; Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang, And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang!

The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thousands as of one, The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington; From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's rocky bound To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her round;

From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows, To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir, Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of "God save Latimer!"

And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray; And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill, And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill.

The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters, Deep calling unto deep aloud, the sound of many waters! Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand? No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land!

Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn; You've spurned our kindest counsels; you've hunted for our lives; And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves!

We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch within The fire-clamps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin; We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and godlike soul of man!

But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven; No slave-hunt in our borders,—no pirate on our strand! No fetters in the Bay State,—no slave upon our land!

1843.



THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

In a publication of L. F. Tasistro—Random Shots and Southern Breezes— is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the stand as "A GOOD CHRISTIAN!" It was not uncommon to see advertisements of slaves for sale, in which they were described as pious or as members of the church. In one advertisement a slave was noted as "a Baptist preacher."

A CHRISTIAN! going, gone! Who bids for God's own image? for his grace, Which that poor victim of the market-place Hath in her suffering won?

My God! can such things be? Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one Is even done to Thee?

In that sad victim, then, Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand; Once more the jest-word of a mocking band, Bound, sold, and scourged again!

A Christian up for sale! Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame, Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame, Her patience shall not fail!

A heathen hand might deal Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years: But her low, broken prayer and nightly tears, Ye neither heed nor feel.

Con well thy lesson o'er, Thou prudent teacher, tell the toiling slave No dangerous tale of Him who came to save The outcast and the poor.

But wisely shut the ray Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart, And to her darkened mind alone impart One stern command, Obey! (3)

So shalt thou deftly raise The market price of human flesh; and while On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile, Thy church shall praise.

Grave, reverend men shall tell From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, While in that vile South Sodom first and best, Thy poor disciples sell.

Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall, Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels, While turning to the sacred Kebla feels His fetters break and fall.

Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne Their inmates into day:

But our poor slave in vain Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes; Its rites will only swell his market price, And rivet on his chain.

God of all right! how long Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand, Lifting in prayer to Thee, the bloody hand And haughty brow of wrong?

1843



THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN

Oh, from the fields of cane, From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cell; From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain; Hoarse, horrible, and strong, Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, Filling the arches of the hollow sky, How long, O God, how long?



THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN.

John L. Brown, a young white man of South Carolina, was in 1844 sentenced to death for aiding a young slave woman, whom he loved and had married, to escape from slavery. In pronouncing the sentence Judge O'Neale addressed to the prisoner these words of appalling blasphemy:

You are to die! To die an ignominious death—the death on the gallows! This announcement is, to you, I know, most appalling. Little did you dream of it when you stepped into the bar with an air as if you thought it was a fine frolic. But the consequences of crime are just such as you are realizing. Punishment often comes when it is least expected. Let me entreat you to take the present opportunity to commence the work of reformation. Time will be furnished you to prepare for the great change just before you. Of your past life I know nothing, except what your trial furnished. That told me that the crime for which you are to suffer was the consequence of a want of attention on your part to the duties of life. The strange woman snared you. She flattered you with her word; and you became her victim. The consequence was, that, led on by a desire to serve her, you committed the offence of aid in a slave to run away and depart from her master's service; and now, for it you are to die! You are a young man, and I fear you have been dissolute; and if so, these kindred vices have contributed a full measure to your ruin. Reflect on your past life, and make the only useful devotion of the remnant of your days in preparing for death. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth is the language of inspired wisdom. This comes home appropriately to you in this trying moment. You are young; quite too young to be where you are. If you had remembered your Creator in your past days, you would not now be in a felon's place, to receive a felon's judgment. Still, it is not too late to remember your Creator. He calls early, and He calls late. He stretches out the arms of a Father's love to you—to the vilest sinner—and says: "Come unto me and be saved." You can perhaps read. If so, read the Scriptures; read them without note, and without comment; and pray to God for His assistance; and you will be able to say when you pass from prison to execution, as a poor slave said under similar circumstances: "I am glad my Friday has come." If you cannot read the Scriptures, the ministers of our holy religion will be ready to aid you. They will read and explain to you until you will be able to understand; and understanding, to call upon the only One who can help you and save you—Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. To Him I commend you. And through Him may you have that opening of the Day-Spring of mercy from on high, which shall bless you here, and crown you as a saint in an everlasting world, forever and ever. The sentence of the law is that you be taken hence to the place from whence you came last; thence to the jail of Fairfield District; and that there you be closely and securely confined until Friday, the 26th day of April next; on which day, between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon, you will be taken to the place of public execution, and there be hanged by the neck till your body be dead. And may God have mercy on your soul!

No event in the history of the anti-slavery struggle so stirred the two hemispheres as did this dreadful sentence. A cry of horror was heard from Europe. In the British House of Lords, Brougham and Denman spoke of it with mingled pathos and indignation. Thirteen hundred clergymen and church officers in Great Britain addressed a memorial to the churches of South Carolina against the atrocity. Indeed, so strong was the pressure of the sentiment of abhorrence and disgust that South Carolina yielded to it, and the sentence was commuted to scourging and banishment.

Ho! thou who seekest late and long A License from the Holy Book For brutal lust and fiendish wrong, Man of the Pulpit, look! Lift up those cold and atheist eyes, This ripe fruit of thy teaching see; And tell us how to heaven will rise The incense of this sacrifice— This blossom of the gallows tree!

Search out for slavery's hour of need Some fitting text of sacred writ; Give heaven the credit of a deed Which shames the nether pit. Kneel, smooth blasphemer, unto Him Whose truth is on thy lips a lie; Ask that His bright winged cherubim May bend around that scaffold grim To guard and bless and sanctify.

O champion of the people's cause Suspend thy loud and vain rebuke Of foreign wrong and Old World's laws, Man of the Senate, look! Was this the promise of the free, The great hope of our early time, That slavery's poison vine should be Upborne by Freedom's prayer-nursed tree O'erclustered with such fruits of crime?

Send out the summons East and West, And South and North, let all be there Where he who pitied the oppressed Swings out in sun and air. Let not a Democratic hand The grisly hangman's task refuse; There let each loyal patriot stand, Awaiting slavery's command, To twist the rope and draw the noose!

But vain is irony—unmeet Its cold rebuke for deeds which start In fiery and indignant beat The pulses of the heart. Leave studied wit and guarded phrase For those who think but do not feel; Let men speak out in words which raise Where'er they fall, an answering blaze Like flints which strike the fire from steel.

Still let a mousing priesthood ply Their garbled text and gloss of sin, And make the lettered scroll deny Its living soul within: Still let the place-fed, titled knave Plead robbery's right with purchased lips, And tell us that our fathers gave For Freedom's pedestal, a slave, The frieze and moulding, chains and whips!

But ye who own that Higher Law Whose tablets in the heart are set, Speak out in words of power and awe That God is living yet! Breathe forth once more those tones sublime Which thrilled the burdened prophet's lyre, And in a dark and evil time Smote down on Israel's fast of crime And gift of blood, a rain of fire!

Oh, not for us the graceful lay To whose soft measures lightly move The footsteps of the faun and fay, O'er-locked by mirth and love! But such a stern and startling strain As Britain's hunted bards flung down From Snowden to the conquered plain, Where harshly clanked the Saxon chain, On trampled field and smoking town.

By Liberty's dishonored name, By man's lost hope and failing trust, By words and deeds which bow with shame Our foreheads to the dust, By the exulting strangers' sneer, Borne to us from the Old World's thrones, And by their victims' grief who hear, In sunless mines and dungeons drear, How Freedom's land her faith disowns!

Speak out in acts. The time for words Has passed, and deeds suffice alone; In vain against the clang of swords The wailing pipe is blown! Act, act in God's name, while ye may! Smite from the church her leprous limb! Throw open to the light of day The bondman's cell, and break away The chains the state has bound on him!

Ho! every true and living soul, To Freedom's perilled altar bear The Freeman's and the Christian's whole Tongue, pen, and vote, and prayer! One last, great battle for the right— One short, sharp struggle to be free! To do is to succeed—our fight Is waged in Heaven's approving sight; The smile of God is Victory.

1844.



TEXAS

VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND.

The five poems immediately following indicate the intense feeling of the friends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States.

Up the hillside, down the glen, Rouse the sleeping citizen; Summon out the might of men!

Like a lion growling low, Like a night-storm rising slow, Like the tread of unseen foe;

It is coming, it is nigh! Stand your homes and altars by; On your own free thresholds die.

Clang the bells in all your spires; On the gray hills of your sires Fling to heaven your signal-fires.

From Wachuset, lone and bleak, Unto Berkshire's tallest peak, Let the flame-tongued heralds speak.

Oh, for God and duty stand, Heart to heart and hand to hand, Round the old graves of the land.

Whoso shrinks or falters now, Whoso to the yoke would bow, Brand the craven on his brow!

Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race, None for traitors false and base.

Perish party, perish clan; Strike together while ye can, Like the arm of one strong man.

Like that angel's voice sublime, Heard above a world of crime, Crying of the end of time;

With one heart and with one mouth, Let the North unto the South Speak the word befitting both.

"What though Issachar be strong Ye may load his back with wrong Overmuch and over long:

"Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done.

"Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strain Link by link shall snap in twain.

"Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Bind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope!

"Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.

"Take your land of sun and bloom; Only leave to Freedom room For her plough, and forge, and loom;

"Take your slavery-blackened vales; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails.

"Boldly, or with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; Break the Union's mighty heart;

"Work the ruin, if ye will; Pluck upon your heads an ill Which shall grow and deepen still.

"With your bondman's right arm bare, With his heart of black despair, Stand alone, if stand ye dare!

"Onward with your fell design; Dig the gulf and draw the line Fire beneath your feet the mine!

"Deeply, when the wide abyss Yawns between your land and this, Shall ye feel your helplessness.

"By the hearth, and in the bed, Shaken by a look or tread, Ye shall own a guilty dread.

"And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soil Like a fire shall burn and spoil.

"Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys flow;—

"And when vengeance clouds your skies, Hither shall ye turn your eyes, As the lost on Paradise!

"We but ask our rocky strand, Freedom's true and brother band, Freedom's strong and honest hand;

"Valleys by the slave untrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' God!"

1844.



TO FANEUIL HALL.

Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Massachusetts Freeman" for a meeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Massachusetts, without distinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and the aggressions of South Carolina, and in favor of decisive action against slavery.

MEN! if manhood still ye claim, If the Northern pulse can thrill, Roused by wrong or stung by shame, Freely, strongly still; Let the sounds of traffic die Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall, Fling the axe and hammer by; Throng to Faneuil Hall!

Wrongs which freemen never brooked, Dangers grim and fierce as they, Which, like couching lions, looked On your fathers' way; These your instant zeal demand, Shaking with their earthquake-call Every rood of Pilgrim land, Ho, to Faneuil Hall!

From your capes and sandy bars, From your mountain-ridges cold, Through whose pines the westering stars Stoop their crowns of gold; Come, and with your footsteps wake Echoes from that holy wall; Once again, for Freedom's sake, Rock your fathers' hall!

Up, and tread beneath your feet Every cord by party spun: Let your hearts together beat As the heart of one. Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, Let them rise or let them fall: Freedom asks your common aid,— Up, to Faneuil Hall!

Up, and let each voice that speaks Ring from thence to Southern plains, Sharply as the blow which breaks Prison-bolts and chains! Speak as well becomes the free Dreaded more than steel or ball, Shall your calmest utterance be, Heard from Faneuil Hall!

Have they wronged us? Let us then Render back nor threats nor prayers; Have they chained our free-born men? Let us unchain theirs! Up, your banner leads the van, Blazoned, "Liberty for all!"

Finish what your sires began! Up, to Faneuil Hall!



TO MASSACHUSETTS.

WHAT though around thee blazes No fiery rallying sign? From all thy own high places, Give heaven the light of thine! What though unthrilled, unmoving, The statesman stand apart, And comes no warm approving From Mammon's crowded mart?

Still, let the land be shaken By a summons of thine own! By all save truth forsaken, Stand fast with that alone! Shrink not from strife unequal! With the best is always hope; And ever in the sequel God holds the right side up!

But when, with thine uniting, Come voices long and loud, And far-off hills are writing Thy fire-words on the cloud; When from Penobscot's fountains A deep response is heard, And across the Western mountains Rolls back thy rallying word;

Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view? Oh, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true! Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom Speed them onward far and fast Over hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast!

Lo! the Empire State is shaking The shackles from her hand; With the rugged North is waking The level sunset land! On they come, the free battalions East and West and North they come, And the heart-beat of the millions Is the beat of Freedom's drum.

"To the tyrant's plot no favor No heed to place-fed knaves! Bar and bolt the door forever Against the land of slaves!" Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread! The land is roused,—its spirit Was sleeping, but not dead!

1844.



NEW HAMPSHIRE.

GOD bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. The long-bound vassal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken! Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changes The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe; To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, New Hampshire thunders an indignant No! Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart, Look upward to those Northern mountains cold, Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled, And gather strength to bear a manlier part All is not lost. The angel of God's blessing Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight; Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing, Unlooked-for allies, striking for the right Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true: What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do?

1845.



THE PINE-TREE.

Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846.

LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!" Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array! What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.

Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries; Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? Would ye barter man for cotton? That your gains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream? Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam?

O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry, "Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet on Mammon's lie! Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's latest pound, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the heart o' the Bay State sound!" Where's the man for Massachusetts! Where's the voice to speak her free? Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? Has she none to break the silence? Has she none to do and dare? O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field

1840.



TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN.

John C. Calhoun, who had strongly urged the extension of slave territory by the annexation of Texas, even if it should involve a war with England, was unwilling to promote the acquisition of Oregon, which would enlarge the Northern domain of freedom, and pleaded as an excuse the peril of foreign complications which he had defied when the interests of slavery were involved.

Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear, Actieon-like, the bay of thine own hounds, Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds? Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand, With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack, To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land, Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back, These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track? Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue, Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung,

O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man? How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting, And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting, Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star! The Fates are just; they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown. There is an Eastern story, not unknown, Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill Called demons up his water-jars to fill; Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, kept pouring still. In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, Faster and faster were the buckets brought, Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in, From out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin, Of the stormed-city and the ghastly plain, Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, The myriad-handed pioneer may pour, And the wild West with the roused North combine And heave the engineer of evil with his mine.

1846.



AT WASHINGTON.

Suggested by a visit to the city of Washington, in the 12th month of 1845.

WITH a cold and wintry noon-light On its roofs and steeples shed, Shadows weaving with the sunlight From the gray sky overhead, Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread.

Through this broad street, restless ever, Ebbs and flows a human tide, Wave on wave a living river; Wealth and fashion side by side; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.

Underneath yon dome, whose coping Springs above them, vast and tall, Grave men in the dust are groping For the largess, base and small, Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall.

Base of heart! They vilely barter Honor's wealth for party's place; Step by step on Freedom's charter Leaving footprints of disgrace; For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great hope of their race.

Yet, where festal lamps are throwing Glory round the dancer's hair, Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing Backward on the sunset air; And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure sweet and rare.

There to-night shall woman's glances, Star-like, welcome give to them; Fawning fools with shy advances Seek to touch their garments' hem, With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth condemn.

From this glittering lie my vision Takes a broader, sadder range, Full before me have arisen Other pictures dark and strange; From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness change.

Hark! the heavy gate is swinging On its hinges, harsh and slow; One pale prison lamp is flinging On a fearful group below Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does not show.

Pitying God! Is that a woman On whose wrist the shackles clash? Is that shriek she utters human, Underneath the stinging lash? Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad procession flash?

Still the dance goes gayly onward What is it to Wealth and Pride That without the stars are looking On a scene which earth should hide? That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking on Potomac's tide!

Vainly to that mean Ambition Which, upon a rival's fall, Winds above its old condition, With a reptile's slimy crawl, Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish call.

Vainly to the child of Fashion, Giving to ideal woe Graceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go; Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show!

Nay, my words are all too sweeping: In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping; Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part.

And from yonder sunny valleys, Southward in the distance lost, Freedom yet shall summon allies Worthier than the North can boast, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost.

Now, the soul alone is willing Faint the heart and weak the knee; And as yet no lip is thrilling With the mighty words, "Be Free!" Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be!

Meanwhile, turning from the revel To the prison-cell my sight, For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night!

"To thy duty now and ever! Dream no more of rest or stay Give to Freedom's great endeavor All thou art and hast to-day:" Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say.

Ye with heart and vision gifted To discern and love the right,

Whose worn faces have been lifted To the slowly-growing light, Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of night

Ye who through long years of trial Still have held your purpose fast, While a lengthening shade the dial from the westering sunshine cast, And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of the last!

O my brothers! O my sisters Would to God that ye were near, Gazing with me down the vistas Of a sorrow strange and drear; Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice I seem to hear!

With the storm above us driving, With the false earth mined below, Who shall marvel if thus striving We have counted friend as foe; Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow.

Well it may be that our natures Have grown sterner and more hard, And the freshness of their features Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred, And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred.

Be it so. It should not swerve us From a purpose true and brave; Dearer Freedom's rugged service Than the pastime of the slave; Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the grave.

Let us then, uniting, bury All our idle feuds in dust, And to future conflicts carry Mutual faith and common trust; Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is most just.

From the eternal shadow rounding All our sun and starlight here, Voices of our lost ones sounding Bid us be of heart and cheer, Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear.

Know we not our dead are looking Downward with a sad surprise, All our strife of words rebuking With their mild and loving eyes? Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloud their blessed skies?

Let us draw their mantles o'er us Which have fallen in our way; Let us do the work before us, Cheerly, bravely, while we may, Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day!



THE BRANDED HAND.

Captain Jonathan Walker, of Harwich, Mass., was solicited by several fugitive slaves at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them in his vessel to the British West Indies. Although well aware of the great hazard of the enterprise he attempted to comply with the request, but was seized at sea by an American vessel, consigned to the authorities at Key West, and thence sent back to Pensacola, where, after a long and rigorous confinement in prison, he was tried and sentenced to be branded on his right hand with the letters "S.S." (slave-stealer) and amerced in a heavy fine.

WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day; With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain.

Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim To make God's truth thy falsehood, His holiest work thy shame? When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the iron was withdrawn, How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to scorn!

They change to wrong the duty which God hath written out On the great heart of humanity, too legible for doubt! They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown, Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown!

Why, that brand is highest honor! than its traces never yet Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set; And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of their father's branded hand!

As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back- from Syrian wars The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars, The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span, So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man.

He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, Thou for His living presence in the bound and bleeding slave; He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God.

For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung, From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung, And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God- deserted shrine, Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine;

While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt, And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt; Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadows dim, And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him!

In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below, Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know; God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angels only can, That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is Man!

That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need; But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod, And herds with lower natures the awful form of God!

Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the wave! Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation to the Slave!" Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.

Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air; Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there! Take it henceforth for your standard, like the Bruce's heart of yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before!

And the masters of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line Can the craft of State avail them? Can a Christless church withstand, In the van of Freedom's onset, the coming of that band?

1846.



THE FREED ISLANDS.

Written for the anniversary celebration of the first of August, at Milton, 7846.

A FEW brief years have passed away Since Britain drove her million slaves Beneath the tropic's fiery ray God willed their freedom; and to-day Life blooms above those island graves!

He spoke! across the Carib Sea, We heard the clash of breaking chains, And felt the heart-throb of the free, The first, strong pulse of liberty Which thrilled along the bondman's veins.

Though long delayed, and far, and slow, The Briton's triumph shall be ours Wears slavery here a prouder brow Than that which twelve short years ago Scowled darkly from her island bowers?

Mighty alike for good or ill With mother-land, we fully share The Saxon strength, the nerve of steel, The tireless energy of will, The power to do, the pride to dare.

What she has done can we not do? Our hour and men are both at hand; The blast which Freedom's angel blew O'er her green islands, echoes through Each valley of our forest land.

Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn The death of slavery. When it falls, Look to your vassals in their turn, Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn, Your prisons and your palace walls!

O kingly mockers! scoffing show What deeds in Freedom's name we do; Yet know that every taunt ye throw Across the waters, goads our slow Progression towards the right and true.

Not always shall your outraged poor, Appalled by democratic crime, Grind as their fathers ground before; The hour which sees our prison door Swing wide shall be their triumph time.

On then, my brothers! every blow Ye deal is felt the wide earth through; Whatever here uplifts the low Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe, Blesses the Old World through the New.

Take heart! The promised hour draws near; I hear the downward beat of wings, And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear "Joy to the people! woe and fear To new-world tyrants, old-world kings!"



A LETTER.

Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" at Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which resulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the election of John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their authorship was not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They furnish a specimen of the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in which the liberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and political outlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected.

'T is over, Moses! All is lost I hear the bells a-ringing; Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host I hear the Free-Wills singing (4) We're routed, Moses, horse and foot, If there be truth in figures, With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit, And Hale, and all the "niggers."

Alack! alas! this month or more We've felt a sad foreboding; Our very dreams the burden bore Of central cliques exploding; Before our eyes a furnace shone, Where heads of dough were roasting, And one we took to be your own The traitor Hale was toasting!

Our Belknap brother (5) heard with awe The Congo minstrels playing; At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt (6) saw The ghost of Storrs a-praying; And Calroll's woods were sad to see, With black-winged crows a-darting; And Black Snout looked on Ossipee, New-glossed with Day and Martin.

We thought the "Old Man of the Notch" His face seemed changing wholly— His lips seemed thick; his nose seemed flat; His misty hair looked woolly; And Coos teamsters, shrieking, fled From the metamorphosed figure. "Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone Head Himself is turning nigger!"

The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauled Seemed turning on its track again, And like a great swamp-turtle crawled To Canaan village back again, Shook off the mud and settled flat Upon its underpinning; A nigger on its ridge-pole sat, From ear to ear a-grinning.

Gray H——d heard o' nights the sound Of rail-cars onward faring; Right over Democratic ground The iron horse came tearing. A flag waved o'er that spectral train, As high as Pittsfield steeple; Its emblem was a broken chain; Its motto: "To the people!"

I dreamed that Charley took his bed, With Hale for his physician; His daily dose an old "unread And unreferred" petition. (8) There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat, As near as near could be, man; They leeched him with the "Democrat;" They blistered with the "Freeman."

Ah! grisly portents! What avail Your terrors of forewarning? We wake to find the nightmare Hale Astride our breasts at morning! From Portsmouth lights to Indian stream Our foes their throats are trying; The very factory-spindles seem To mock us while they're flying.

The hills have bonfires; in our streets Flags flout us in our faces; The newsboys, peddling off their sheets, Are hoarse with our disgraces. In vain we turn, for gibing wit And shoutings follow after, As if old Kearsarge had split His granite sides with laughter.

What boots it that we pelted out The anti-slavery women, (9) And bravely strewed their hall about With tattered lace and trimming? Was it for such a sad reverse Our mobs became peacemakers, And kept their tar and wooden horse For Englishmen and Quakers?

For this did shifty Atherton Make gag rules for the Great House? Wiped we for this our feet upon Petitions in our State House? Plied we for this our axe of doom, No stubborn traitor sparing, Who scoffed at our opinion loom, And took to homespun wearing?

Ah, Moses! hard it is to scan These crooked providences, Deducing from the wisest plan The saddest consequences! Strange that, in trampling as was meet The nigger-men's petition, We sprang a mine beneath our feet Which opened up perdition.

How goodly, Moses, was the game In which we've long been actors, Supplying freedom with the name And slavery with the practice Our smooth words fed the people's mouth, Their ears our party rattle; We kept them headed to the South, As drovers do their cattle.

But now our game of politics The world at large is learning; And men grown gray in all our tricks State's evidence are turning. Votes and preambles subtly spun They cram with meanings louder, And load the Democratic gun With abolition powder.

The ides of June! Woe worth the day When, turning all things over, The traitor Hale shall make his hay From Democratic clover! Who then shall take him in the law, Who punish crime so flagrant? Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw, A writ against that "vagrant"?

Alas! no hope is left us here, And one can only pine for The envied place of overseer Of slaves in Carolina! Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink, And see what pay he's giving! We've practised long enough, we think, To know the art of driving.

And for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their while To try the rice plantations. Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper; The slaves, we know, are "better off Than laborers in New Hampshire!"



LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND.

A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of fire, O Freedom's God! be Thou to him!

Speak through him words of power and fear, As through Thy prophet bards of old, And let a scornful people hear Once more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled.

For lying lips Thy blessing seek, And hands of blood are raised to Thee, And On Thy children, crushed and weak, The oppressor plants his kneeling knee.

Let then, O God! Thy servant dare Thy truth in all its power to tell, Unmask the priestly thieves, and tear The Bible from the grasp of hell!

From hollow rite and narrow span Of law and sect by Thee released, Oh, teach him that the Christian man Is holier than the Jewish priest.

Chase back the shadows, gray and old, Of the dead ages, from his way, And let his hopeful eyes behold The dawn of Thy millennial day;

That day when fettered limb and mind Shall know the truth which maketh free, And he alone who loves his kind Shall, childlike, claim the love of Thee!



DANIEL NEALL.

Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that venerated philanthropist, Warner Mifflin, whom the Girondist statesman, Jean Pierre Brissot, pronounced "an angel of mercy, the best man he ever knew," was one of the noble band of Pennsylvania abolitionists, whose bravery was equalled only by their gentleness and tenderness. He presided at the great anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall, May 17, 1838, when the Hall was surrounded by a furious mob. I was standing near him while the glass of the windows broken by missiles showered over him, and a deputation from the rioters forced its way to the platform, and demanded that the meeting should be closed at once. Dr. Neall drew up his tall form to its utmost height. "I am here," he said, "the president of this meeting, and I will be torn in pieces before I leave my place at your dictation. Go back to those who sent you. I shall do my duty." Some years after, while visiting his relatives in his native State of Delaware, he was dragged from the house of his friends by a mob of slave-holders and brutally maltreated. He bore it like a martyr of the old times; and when released, told his persecutors that he forgave them, for it was not they but Slavery which had done the wrong. If they should ever be in Philadelphia and needed hospitality or aid, let them call on him.

I. FRIEND of the Slave, and yet the friend of all; Lover of peace, yet ever foremost when The need of battling Freedom called for men To plant the banner on the outer wall; Gentle and kindly, ever at distress Melted to more than woman's tenderness, Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's post Fronting the violence of a maddened host, Like some gray rock from which the waves are tossed! Knowing his deeds of love, men questioned not The faith of one whose walk and word were right; Who tranquilly in Life's great task-field wrought, And, side by side with evil, scarcely caught A stain upon his pilgrim garb of white Prompt to redress another's wrong, his own Leaving to Time and Truth and Penitence alone.

II. Such was our friend. Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still; And, while "Lord, Lord!" the pious tyrants cried, Who, in the poor, their Master crucified, His daily prayer, far better understood In acts than words, was simply doing good. So calm, so constant was his rectitude, That by his loss alone we know its worth, And feel how true a man has walked with us on earth.

6th, 6th month, 1846.



SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT.

"Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March, 1846.—This evening the female slaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to ask my negro servant, Said, what they were singing about. As many of them were natives of his own country, he had no difficulty in translating the Mandara or Bornou language. I had often asked the Moors to translate their songs for me, but got no satisfactory account from them. Said at first said, 'Oh, they sing of Rubee' (God). 'What do you mean?' I replied, impatiently. 'Oh, don't you know?' he continued, 'they asked God to give them their Atka?' (certificate of freedom). I inquired, 'Is that all?' Said: 'No; they say, "Where are we going? The world is large. O God! Where are we going? O God!"' I inquired, 'What else?' Said: 'They remember their country, Bornou, and say, "Bornou was a pleasant country, full of all good things; but this is a bad country, and we are miserable!"' 'Do they say anything else?' Said: 'No; they repeat these words over and over again, and add, "O God! give us our Atka, and let us return again to our dear home."'

"I am not surprised I got little satisfaction when I asked the Moors about the songs of their slaves. Who will say that the above words are not a very appropriate song? What could have been more congenially adapted to their then woful condition? It is not to be wondered at that these poor bondwomen cheer up their hearts, in their long, lonely, and painful wanderings over the desert, with words and sentiments like these; but I have often observed that their fatigue and sufferings were too great for them to strike up this melancholy dirge, and many days their plaintive strains never broke over the silence of the desert."— Richardson's Journal in Africa.

WHERE are we going? where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee? Lord of peoples, lord of lands, Look across these shining sands, Through the furnace of the noon, Through the white light of the moon. Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, Strange and large the world is growing! Speak and tell us where we are going, Where are we going, Rubee?

Bornou land was rich and good, Wells of water, fields of food, Dourra fields, and bloom of bean, And the palm-tree cool and green Bornou land we see no longer, Here we thirst and here we hunger, Here the Moor-man smites in anger Where are we going, Rubee?

When we went from Bornou land, We were like the leaves and sand, We were many, we are few; Life has one, and death has two Whitened bones our path are showing, Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing Hear us, tell us, where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?

Moons of marches from our eyes Bornou land behind us lies; Stranger round us day by day Bends the desert circle gray; Wild the waves of sand are flowing, Hot the winds above them blowing,— Lord of all things! where are we going? Where are we going, Rubee?

We are weak, but Thou art strong; Short our lives, but Thine is long; We are blind, but Thou hast eyes; We are fools, but Thou art wise! Thou, our morrow's pathway knowing Through the strange world round us growing, Hear us, tell us where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?

1847.



TO DELAWARE.

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.



YORKTOWN.

Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regiment, in his description of the siege of Yorktown, says: "The labor on the Virginia plantations is performed altogether by a species of the human race cruelly wrested from their native country, and doomed to perpetual bondage, while their masters are manfully contending for freedom and the natural rights of man. Such is the inconsistency of human nature." Eighteen hundred slaves were found at Yorktown, after its surrender, and restored to their masters. Well was it said by Dr. Barnes, in his late work on Slavery: "No slave was any nearer his freedom after the surrender of Yorktown than when Patrick Henry first taught the notes of liberty to echo among the hills and vales of Virginia."

FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill Who curbs his steed at head of one? Hark! the low murmur: Washington! Who bends his keen, approving glance, Where down the gorgeous line of France Shine knightly star and plume of snow? Thou too art victor, Rochambeau! The earth which bears this calm array Shook with the war-charge yesterday,

Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel; October's clear and noonday sun Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun, And down night's double blackness fell, Like a dropped star, the blazing shell.

Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines Stand moveless as the neighboring pines; While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, The conquered hosts of England go O'Hara's brow belies his dress, Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless: Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes!

Nor thou alone; with one glad voice Let all thy sister States rejoice; Let Freedom, in whatever clime She waits with sleepless eye her time, Shouting from cave and mountain wood Make glad her desert solitude, While they who hunt her quail with fear; The New World's chain lies broken here!

But who are they, who, cowering, wait Within the shattered fortress gate? Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, Classed with the battle's common spoil, With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine, With Indian weed and planters' wine, With stolen beeves, and foraged corn,— Are they not men, Virginian born?

Oh, veil your faces, young and brave! Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave Sons of the Northland, ye who set Stout hearts against the bayonet, And pressed with steady footfall near The moated battery's blazing tier, Turn your scarred faces from the sight, Let shame do homage to the right!

Lo! fourscore years have passed; and where The Gallic bugles stirred the air, And, through breached batteries, side by side, To victory stormed the hosts allied, And brave foes grounded, pale with pain, The arms they might not lift again, As abject as in that old day The slave still toils his life away.