1873.



IN QUEST

Have I not voyaged, friend beloved, with thee On the great waters of the unsounded sea, Momently listening with suspended oar For the low rote of waves upon a shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplex us here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear? Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting-place, Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space, And round about us seeing, with sad eyes, The same old difficult hills and cloud-cold skies, We said: "This outward search availeth not To find Him. He is farther than we thought, Or, haply, nearer. To this very spot Whereon we wait, this commonplace of home, As to the well of Jacob, He may come And tell us all things." As I listened there, Through the expectant silences of prayer, Somewhat I seemed to hear, which hath to me Been hope, strength, comfort, and I give it thee.

"The riddle of the world is understood Only by him who feels that God is good, As only he can feel who makes his love The ladder of his faith, and climbs above On th' rounds of his best instincts; draws no line Between mere human goodness and divine, But, judging God by what in him is best, With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast, And hears unmoved the old creeds babble still Of kingly power and dread caprice of will, Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse, The pitiless doomsman of the universe. Can Hatred ask for love? Can Selfishness Invite to self-denial? Is He less Than man in kindly dealing? Can He break His own great law of fatherhood, forsake And curse His children? Not for earth and heaven Can separate tables of the law be given. No rule can bind which He himself denies; The truths of time are not eternal lies."

So heard I; and the chaos round me spread To light and order grew; and, "Lord," I said, "Our sins are our tormentors, worst of all Felt in distrustful shame that dares not call Upon Thee as our Father. We have set A strange god up, but Thou remainest yet. All that I feel of pity Thou hast known Before I was; my best is all Thy own. From Thy great heart of goodness mine but drew Wishes and prayers; but Thou, O Lord, wilt do, In Thy own time, by ways I cannot see, All that I feel when I am nearest Thee!"

1873.



THE FRIEND'S BURIAL.

My thoughts are all in yonder town, Where, wept by many tears, To-day my mother's friend lays down The burden of her years.

True as in life, no poor disguise Of death with her is seen, And on her simple casket lies No wreath of bloom and green.

Oh, not for her the florist's art, The mocking weeds of woe; Dear memories in each mourner's heart Like heaven's white lilies blow.

And all about the softening air Of new-born sweetness tells, And the ungathered May-flowers wear The tints of ocean shells.

The old, assuring miracle Is fresh as heretofore; And earth takes up its parable Of life from death once more.

Here organ-swell and church-bell toll Methinks but discord were; The prayerful silence of the soul Is best befitting her.

No sound should break the quietude Alike of earth and sky O wandering wind in Seabrook wood, Breathe but a half-heard sigh!

Sing softly, spring-bird, for her sake; And thou not distant sea, Lapse lightly as if Jesus spake, And thou wert Galilee!

For all her quiet life flowed on As meadow streamlets flow, Where fresher green reveals alone The noiseless ways they go.

From her loved place of prayer I see The plain-robed mourners pass, With slow feet treading reverently The graveyard's springing grass.

Make room, O mourning ones, for me, Where, like the friends of Paul, That you no more her face shall see You sorrow most of all.

Her path shall brighten more and more Unto the perfect day; She cannot fail of peace who bore Such peace with her away.

O sweet, calm face that seemed to wear The look of sins forgiven! O voice of prayer that seemed to bear Our own needs up to heaven!

How reverent in our midst she stood, Or knelt in grateful praise! What grace of Christian womanhood Was in her household ways!

For still her holy living meant No duty left undone; The heavenly and the human blent Their kindred loves in one.

And if her life small leisure found For feasting ear and eye, And Pleasure, on her daily round, She passed unpausing by,

Yet with her went a secret sense Of all things sweet and fair, And Beauty's gracious providence Refreshed her unaware.

She kept her line of rectitude With love's unconscious ease; Her kindly instincts understood All gentle courtesies.

An inborn charm of graciousness Made sweet her smile and tone, And glorified her farm-wife dress With beauty not its own.

The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls; The Gospel of a life like hers Is more than books or scrolls.

From scheme and creed the light goes out, The saintly fact survives; The blessed Master none can doubt Revealed in holy lives. 1873.



A CHRISTMAS CARMEN.

I. Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands, The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands; Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn, Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born! With glad jubilations Bring hope to the nations The dark night is ending and dawn has begun Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

II. Sing the bridal of nations! with chorals of love Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove, Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord, And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord! Clasp hands of the nations In strong gratulations: The dark night is ending and dawn has begun; Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

III. Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man! Hark! joining in chorus The heavens bend o'er us' The dark night is ending and dawn has begun; Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one! 1873.



VESTA.

O Christ of God! whose life and death Our own have reconciled, Most quietly, most tenderly Take home Thy star-named child!

Thy grace is in her patient eyes, Thy words are on her tongue; The very silence round her seems As if the angels sung.

Her smile is as a listening child's Who hears its mother call; The lilies of Thy perfect peace About her pillow fall.

She leans from out our clinging arms To rest herself in Thine; Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we Our well-beloved resign!

Oh, less for her than for ourselves We bow our heads and pray; Her setting star, like Bethlehem's, To Thee shall point the way! 1874.



CHILD-SONGS.

Still linger in our noon of time And on our Saxon tongue The echoes of the home-born hymns The Aryan mothers sung.

And childhood had its litanies In every age and clime; The earliest cradles of the race Were rocked to poet's rhyme.

Nor sky, nor wave, nor tree, nor flower, Nor green earth's virgin sod, So moved the singer's heart of old As these small ones of God.

The mystery of unfolding life Was more than dawning morn, Than opening flower or crescent moon The human soul new-born.

And still to childhood's sweet appeal The heart of genius turns, And more than all the sages teach From lisping voices learns,—

The voices loved of him who sang, Where Tweed and Teviot glide, That sound to-day on all the winds That blow from Rydal-side,—

Heard in the Teuton's household songs, And folk-lore of the Finn, Where'er to holy Christmas hearths The Christ-child enters in!

Before life's sweetest mystery still The heart in reverence kneels; The wonder of the primal birth The latest mother feels.

We need love's tender lessons taught As only weakness can; God hath His small interpreters; The child must teach the man.

We wander wide through evil years, Our eyes of faith grow dim; But he is freshest from His hands And nearest unto Him!

And haply, pleading long with Him For sin-sick hearts and cold, The angels of our childhood still The Father's face behold.

Of such the kingdom!—Teach Thou us, O-Master most divine, To feel the deep significance Of these wise words of Thine!

The haughty eye shall seek in vain What innocence beholds; No cunning finds the key of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds.

Alone to guilelessness and love That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness, The childlike heart is all!

1875.



THE HEALER.

TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, WITH DORE'S PICTURE OF CHRIST HEALING THE SICK.

So stood of old the holy Christ Amidst the suffering throng; With whom His lightest touch sufficed To make the weakest strong.

That healing gift He lends to them Who use it in His name; The power that filled His garment's hem Is evermore the same.

For lo! in human hearts unseen The Healer dwelleth still, And they who make His temples clean The best subserve His will.

The holiest task by Heaven decreed, An errand all divine, The burden of our common need To render less is thine.

The paths of pain are thine. Go forth With patience, trust, and hope; The sufferings of a sin-sick earth Shall give thee ample scope.

Beside the unveiled mysteries Of life and death go stand, With guarded lips and reverent eyes And pure of heart and hand.

So shalt thou be with power endued From Him who went about The Syrian hillsides doing good, And casting demons out.

That Good Physician liveth yet Thy friend and guide to be; The Healer by Gennesaret Shall walk the rounds with thee.



THE TWO ANGELS.

God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above: The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love.

"Arise," He said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sin Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within.

"My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells, The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels.

"Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!"

Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair; Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air.

The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels came Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame.

There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear, Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer.

And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell, And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell!

Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne, Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon!

And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake, Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake:

"Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven; Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!"

1875.



OVERRULED.

The threads our hands in blindness spin No self-determined plan weaves in; The shuttle of the unseen powers Works out a pattern not as ours.

Ah! small the choice of him who sings What sound shall leave the smitten strings; Fate holds and guides the hand of art; The singer's is the servant's part.

The wind-harp chooses not the tone That through its trembling threads is blown; The patient organ cannot guess What hand its passive keys shall press.

Through wish, resolve, and act, our will Is moved by undreamed forces still; And no man measures in advance His strength with untried circumstance.

As streams take hue from shade and sun, As runs the life the song must run; But, glad or sad, to His good end God grant the varying notes may tend! 1877.



HYMN OF THE DUNKERS

KLOSTER KEDAR, EPHRATA, PENNSYLVANIA (1738)

SISTER MARIA CHRISTINA sings

Wake, sisters, wake! the day-star shines; Above Ephrata's eastern pines The dawn is breaking, cool and calm. Wake, sisters, wake to prayer and psalm!

Praised be the Lord for shade and light, For toil by day, for rest by night! Praised be His name who deigns to bless Our Kedar of the wilderness!

Our refuge when the spoiler's hand Was heavy on our native land; And freedom, to her children due, The wolf and vulture only knew.

We praised Him when to prison led, We owned Him when the stake blazed red; We knew, whatever might befall, His love and power were over all.

He heard our prayers; with outstretched arm He led us forth from cruel harm; Still, wheresoe'er our steps were bent, His cloud and fire before us went!

The watch of faith and prayer He set, We kept it then, we keep it yet. At midnight, crow of cock, or noon, He cometh sure, He cometh soon.

He comes to chasten, not destroy, To purge the earth from sin's alloy. At last, at last shall all confess His mercy as His righteousness.

The dead shall live, the sick be whole, The scarlet sin be white as wool; No discord mar below, above, The music of eternal love!

Sound, welcome trump, the last alarm! Lord God of hosts, make bare thine arm, Fulfil this day our long desire, Make sweet and clean the world with fire!

Sweep, flaming besom, sweep from sight The lies of time; be swift to smite, Sharp sword of God, all idols down, Genevan creed and Roman crown.

Quake, earth, through all thy zones, till all The fanes of pride and priesteraft fall; And lift thou up in place of them Thy gates of pearl, Jerusalem!

Lo! rising from baptismal flame, Transfigured, glorious, yet the same, Within the heavenly city's bound Our Kloster Kedar shall be found.

He cometh soon! at dawn or noon Or set of sun, He cometh soon. Our prayers shall meet Him on His way; Wake, sisters, wake! arise and pray!

1877.



GIVING AND TAKING.

I have attempted to put in English verse a prose translation of a poem by Tinnevaluva, a Hindoo poet of the third century of our era.

Who gives and hides the giving hand, Nor counts on favor, fame, or praise, Shall find his smallest gift outweighs The burden of the sea and land.

Who gives to whom hath naught been given, His gift in need, though small indeed As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed, Is large as earth and rich as heaven.

Forget it not, O man, to whom A gift shall fall, while yet on earth; Yea, even to thy seven-fold birth Recall it in the lives to come.

Who broods above a wrong in thought Sins much; but greater sin is his Who, fed and clothed with kindnesses, Shall count the holy alms as nought.

Who dares to curse the hands that bless Shall know of sin the deadliest cost; The patience of the heavens is lost Beholding man's unthankfulness.

For he who breaks all laws may still In Sivam's mercy be forgiven; But none can save, in earth or heaven, The wretch who answers good with ill.

1877.



THE VISION OF ECHARD.

The Benedictine Echard Sat by the wayside well, Where Marsberg sees the bridal Of the Sarre and the Moselle.

Fair with its sloping vineyards And tawny chestnut bloom, The happy vale Ausonius sunk For holy Treves made room.

On the shrine Helena builded To keep the Christ coat well, On minster tower and kloster cross, The westering sunshine fell.

There, where the rock-hewn circles O'erlooked the Roman's game, The veil of sleep fell on him, And his thought a dream became.

He felt the heart of silence Throb with a soundless word, And by the inward ear alone A spirit's voice he heard.

And the spoken word seemed written On air and wave and sod, And the bending walls of sapphire Blazed with the thought of God.

"What lack I, O my children? All things are in my band; The vast earth and the awful stars I hold as grains of sand.

"Need I your alms? The silver And gold are mine alone; The gifts ye bring before me Were evermore my own.

"Heed I the noise of viols, Your pomp of masque and show? Have I not dawns and sunsets Have I not winds that blow?

"Do I smell your gums of incense? Is my ear with chantings fed? Taste I your wine of worship, Or eat your holy bread?

"Of rank and name and honors Am I vain as ye are vain? What can Eternal Fulness From your lip-service gain?

"Ye make me not your debtor Who serve yourselves alone; Ye boast to me of homage Whose gain is all your own.

"For you I gave the prophets, For you the Psalmist's lay For you the law's stone tables, And holy book and day.

"Ye change to weary burdens The helps that should uplift; Ye lose in form the spirit, The Giver in the gift.

"Who called ye to self-torment, To fast and penance vain? Dream ye Eternal Goodness Has joy in mortal pain?

"For the death in life of Nitria, For your Chartreuse ever dumb, What better is the neighbor, Or happier the home?

"Who counts his brother's welfare As sacred as his own, And loves, forgives, and pities, He serveth me alone.

"I note each gracious purpose, Each kindly word and deed; Are ye not all my children? Shall not the Father heed?

"No prayer for light and guidance Is lost upon mine ear The child's cry in the darkness Shall not the Father hear?

"I loathe your wrangling councils, I tread upon your creeds; Who made ye mine avengers, Or told ye of my needs;

"I bless men and ye curse them, I love them and ye hate; Ye bite and tear each other, I suffer long and wait.

"Ye bow to ghastly symbols, To cross and scourge and thorn; Ye seek his Syrian manger Who in the heart is born.

"For the dead Christ, not the living, Ye watch His empty grave, Whose life alone within you Has power to bless and save.

"O blind ones, outward groping, The idle quest forego; Who listens to His inward voice Alone of Him shall know.

"His love all love exceeding The heart must needs recall, Its self-surrendering freedom, Its loss that gaineth all.

"Climb not the holy mountains, Their eagles know not me; Seek not the Blessed Islands, I dwell not in the sea.

"Gone is the mount of Meru, The triple gods are gone, And, deaf to all the lama's prayers, The Buddha slumbers on.

"No more from rocky Horeb The smitten waters gush; Fallen is Bethel's ladder, Quenched is the burning bush.

"The jewels of the Urim And Thurnmim all are dim; The fire has left the altar, The sign the teraphim.

"No more in ark or hill grove The Holiest abides; Not in the scroll's dead letter The eternal secret hides.

"The eye shall fail that searches For me the hollow sky; The far is even as the near, The low is as the high.

"What if the earth is hiding Her old faiths, long outworn? What is it to the changeless truth That yours shall fail in turn?

"What if the o'erturned altar Lays bare the ancient lie? What if the dreams and legends Of the world's childhood die?

"Have ye not still my witness Within yourselves alway, My hand that on the keys of life For bliss or bale I lay?

"Still, in perpetual judgment, I hold assize within, With sure reward of holiness, And dread rebuke of sin.

"A light, a guide, a warning, A presence ever near, Through the deep silence of the flesh I reach the inward ear.

"My Gerizim and Ebal Are in each human soul, The still, small voice of blessing, And Sinai's thunder-roll.

"The stern behest of duty, The doom-book open thrown, The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, Are with yourselves alone."

. . . . .

A gold and purple sunset Flowed down the broad Moselle; On hills of vine and meadow lands The peace of twilight fell.

A slow, cool wind of evening Blew over leaf and bloom; And, faint and far, the Angelus Rang from Saint Matthew's tomb.

Then up rose Master Echard, And marvelled: "Can it be That here, in dream and vision, The Lord hath talked with me?"

He went his way; behind him The shrines of saintly dead, The holy coat and nail of cross, He left unvisited.

He sought the vale of Eltzbach His burdened soul to free, Where the foot-hills of the Eifel Are glassed in Laachersee.

And, in his Order's kloster, He sat, in night-long parle, With Tauler of the Friends of God, And Nicolas of Basle.

And lo! the twain made answer "Yea, brother, even thus The Voice above all voices Hath spoken unto us.

"The world will have its idols, And flesh and sense their sign But the blinded eyes shall open, And the gross ear be fine.

"What if the vision tarry? God's time is always best; The true Light shall be witnessed, The Christ within confessed.

"In mercy or in judgment He shall turn and overturn, Till the heart shall be His temple Where all of Him shall learn."



INSCRIPTIONS.

ON A SUN-DIAL.

FOR DR. HENRY I. BOWDITCH.

With warning hand I mark Time's rapid flight From life's glad morning to its solemn night; Yet, through the dear God's love, I also show There's Light above me by the Shade below.

1879.



ON A FOUNTAIN.

FOR DOROTHEA L. DIX.

Stranger and traveller, Drink freely and bestow A kindly thought on her Who bade this fountain flow, Yet hath no other claim Than as the minister Of blessing in God's name. Drink, and in His peace go

1879



THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER.

In the minister's morning sermon He had told of the primal fall, And how thenceforth the wrath of God Rested on each and all.

And how of His will and pleasure, All souls, save a chosen few, Were doomed to the quenchless burning, And held in the way thereto.

Yet never by faith's unreason A saintlier soul was tried, And never the harsh old lesson A tenderer heart belied.

And, after the painful service On that pleasant Sabbath day, He walked with his little daughter Through the apple-bloom of May.

Sweet in the fresh green meadows Sparrow and blackbird sung; Above him their tinted petals The blossoming orchards hung.

Around on the wonderful glory The minister looked and smiled; "How good is the Lord who gives us These gifts from His hand, my child.

"Behold in the bloom of apples And the violets in the sward A hint of the old, lost beauty Of the Garden of the Lord!"

Then up spake the little maiden, Treading on snow and pink "O father! these pretty blossoms Are very wicked, I think.

"Had there been no Garden of Eden There never had been a fall; And if never a tree had blossomed God would have loved us all."

"Hush, child!" the father answered, "By His decree man fell; His ways are in clouds and darkness, But He doeth all things well.

"And whether by His ordaining To us cometh good or ill, Joy or pain, or light or shadow, We must fear and love Him still."

"Oh, I fear Him!" said the daughter, "And I try to love Him, too; But I wish He was good and gentle, Kind and loving as you."

The minister groaned in spirit As the tremulous lips of pain And wide, wet eyes uplifted Questioned his own in vain.

Bowing his head he pondered The words of the little one; Had he erred in his life-long teaching? Had he wrong to his Master done?

To what grim and dreadful idol Had he lent the holiest name? Did his own heart, loving and human, The God of his worship shame?

And lo! from the bloom and greenness, From the tender skies above, And the face of his little daughter, He read a lesson of love.

No more as the cloudy terror Of Sinai's mount of law, But as Christ in the Syrian lilies The vision of God he saw.

And, as when, in the clefts of Horeb, Of old was His presence known, The dread Ineffable Glory Was Infinite Goodness alone.

Thereafter his hearers noted In his prayers a tenderer strain, And never the gospel of hatred Burned on his lips again.

And the scoffing tongue was prayerful, And the blinded eyes found sight, And hearts, as flint aforetime, Grew soft in his warmth and light.

1880.



BY THEIR WORKS.

Call him not heretic whose works attest His faith in goodness by no creed confessed. Whatever in love's name is truly done To free the bound and lift the fallen one Is done to Christ. Whoso in deed and word Is not against Him labors for our Lord. When He, who, sad and weary, longing sore For love's sweet service, sought the sisters' door, One saw the heavenly, one the human guest, But who shall say which loved the Master best?

1881.



THE WORD.

Voice of the Holy Spirit, making known Man to himself, a witness swift and sure, Warning, approving, true and wise and pure, Counsel and guidance that misleadeth none! By thee the mystery of life is read; The picture-writing of the world's gray seers, The myths and parables of the primal years, Whose letter kills, by thee interpreted Take healthful meanings fitted to our needs, And in the soul's vernacular express The common law of simple righteousness. Hatred of cant and doubt of human creeds May well be felt: the unpardonable sin Is to deny the Word of God within!

1881.



THE BOOK.

Gallery of sacred pictures manifold, A minster rich in holy effigies, And bearing on entablature and frieze The hieroglyphic oracles of old. Along its transept aureoled martyrs sit; And the low chancel side-lights half acquaint The eye with shrines of prophet, bard, and saint, Their age-dimmed tablets traced in doubtful writ! But only when on form and word obscure Falls from above the white supernal light We read the mystic characters aright, And life informs the silent portraiture, Until we pause at last, awe-held, before The One ineffable Face, love, wonder, and adore.

1881



REQUIREMENT.

We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God's, Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save Justice and mercy and humility, A reasonable service of good deeds, Pure living, tenderness to human needs, Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see The Master's footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, But the calm beauty of an ordered life Whose very breathing is unworded praise!— A life that stands as all true lives have stood, Firm-rooted in the faith that God is Good.

1881.



HELP.

Dream not, O Soul, that easy is the task Thus set before thee. If it proves at length, As well it may, beyond thy natural strength, Faint not, despair not. As a child may ask A father, pray the Everlasting Good For light and guidance midst the subtle snares Of sin thick planted in life's thoroughfares, For spiritual strength and moral hardihood; Still listening, through the noise of time and sense, To the still whisper of the Inward Word; Bitter in blame, sweet in approval heard, Itself its own confirming evidence To health of soul a voice to cheer and please, To guilt the wrath of the Eumenides.

1881.



UTTERANCE.

But what avail inadequate words to reach The innermost of Truth? Who shall essay, Blinded and weak, to point and lead the way, Or solve the mystery in familiar speech? Yet, if it be that something not thy own, Some shadow of the Thought to which our schemes, Creeds, cult, and ritual are at best but dreams, Is even to thy unworthiness made known, Thou mayst not hide what yet thou shouldst not dare To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine The real seem false, the beauty undivine. So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer, Give what seems given thee. It may prove a seed Of goodness dropped in fallow-grounds of need.

1881.



ORIENTAL MAXIMS.

PARAPHRASE OF SANSCRIT TRANSLATIONS.



THE INWARD JUDGE.

From Institutes of Manu.

The soul itself its awful witness is. Say not in evil doing, "No one sees," And so offend the conscious One within, Whose ear can hear the silences of sin.

Ere they find voice, whose eyes unsleeping see The secret motions of iniquity. Nor in thy folly say, "I am alone." For, seated in thy heart, as on a throne, The ancient Judge and Witness liveth still, To note thy act and thought; and as thy ill Or good goes from thee, far beyond thy reach, The solemn Doomsman's seal is set on each.

1878.



LAYING UP TREASURE

From the Mahabharata.

Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that kings Nor thieves can take away. When all the things Thou tallest thine, goods, pleasures, honors fall, Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all.

1881.



CONDUCT

From the Mahabharata.

Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day Which from the night shall drive thy peace away. In months of sun so live that months of rain Shall still be happy. Evermore restrain Evil and cherish good, so shall there be Another and a happier life for thee.

1881.



AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT.

O dearest bloom the seasons know, Flowers of the Resurrection blow, Our hope and faith restore; And through the bitterness of death And loss and sorrow, breathe a breath Of life forevermore!

The thought of Love Immortal blends With fond remembrances of friends; In you, O sacred flowers, By human love made doubly sweet, The heavenly and the earthly meet, The heart of Christ and ours!

1882.



THE MYSTIC'S CHRISTMAS.

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang, "All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang, The merry monks who kept with cheer The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat, A pious elder brother sat Silent, in his accustomed place, With God's sweet peace upon his face.

"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried. "It is the blessed Christmas-tide; The Christmas lights are all aglow, The sacred lilies bud and blow.

"Above our heads the joy-bells ring, Without the happy children sing, And all God's creatures hail the morn On which the holy Christ was born!

"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke Our gladness with thy quiet look." The gray monk answered: "Keep, I pray, Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday.

"Let heathen Yule fires flicker red Where thronged refectory feasts are spread; With mystery-play and masque and mime And wait-songs speed the holy time!

"The blindest faith may haply save; The Lord accepts the things we have; And reverence, howsoe'er it strays, May find at last the shining ways.

"They needs must grope who cannot see, The blade before the ear must be; As ye are feeling I have felt, And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

"But now, beyond the things of sense, Beyond occasions and events, I know, through God's exceeding grace, Release from form and time and place.

"I listen, from no mortal tongue, To hear the song the angels sung; And wait within myself to know The Christmas lilies bud and blow.

"The outward symbols disappear From him whose inward sight is clear; And small must be the choice of clays To him who fills them all with praise!

"Keep while you need it, brothers mine, With honest zeal your Christmas sign, But judge not him who every morn Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!"

1882.



AT LAST.

When on my day of life the night is falling, And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown,

Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; O Love Divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay!

Be near me when all else is from me drifting Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love which answers mine.

I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold.

Suffice it if—my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace— I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place.

Some humble door among Thy many mansions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, And flows forever through heaven's green expansions The river of Thy peace.

There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song, And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, The life for which I long.

1882



WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET.

The shadows grow and deepen round me, I feel the deffall in the air; The muezzin of the darkening thicket, I hear the night-thrush call to prayer.

The evening wind is sad with farewells, And loving hands unclasp from mine; Alone I go to meet the darkness Across an awful boundary-line.

As from the lighted hearths behind me I pass with slow, reluctant feet, What waits me in the land of strangeness? What face shall smile, what voice shall greet?

What space shall awe, what brightness blind me? What thunder-roll of music stun? What vast processions sweep before me Of shapes unknown beneath the sun?

I shrink from unaccustomed glory, I dread the myriad-voiced strain; Give me the unforgotten faces, And let my lost ones speak again.

He will not chide my mortal yearning Who is our Brother and our Friend; In whose full life, divine and human, The heavenly and the earthly blend.

Mine be the joy of soul-communion, The sense of spiritual strength renewed, The reverence for the pure and holy, The dear delight of doing good.

No fitting ear is mine to listen An endless anthem's rise and fall; No curious eye is mine to measure The pearl gate and the jasper wall.

For love must needs be more than knowledge: What matter if I never know Why Aldebaran's star is ruddy, Or warmer Sirius white as snow!

Forgive my human words, O Father! I go Thy larger truth to prove; Thy mercy shall transcend my longing I seek but love, and Thou art Love!

I go to find my lost and mourned for Safe in Thy sheltering goodness still, And all that hope and faith foreshadow Made perfect in Thy holy will!

1883.



THE "STORY OF IDA."

Francesca Alexander, whose pen and pencil have so reverently transcribed the simple faith and life of the Italian peasantry, wrote the narrative published with John Ruskin's introduction under the title, The Story of Ida.

Weary of jangling noises never stilled, The skeptic's sneer, the bigot's hate, the din Of clashing texts, the webs of creed men spin Round simple truth, the children grown who build With gilded cards their new Jerusalem, Busy, with sacerdotal tailorings And tinsel gauds, bedizening holy things, I turn, with glad and grateful heart, from them To the sweet story of the Florentine Immortal in her blameless maidenhood, Beautiful as God's angels and as good; Feeling that life, even now, may be divine With love no wrong can ever change to hate, No sin make less than all-compassionate!

1884.



THE LIGHT THAT IS FELT.

A tender child of summers three, Seeking her little bed at night, Paused on the dark stair timidly. "Oh, mother! Take my hand," said she, "And then the dark will all be light."

We older children grope our way From dark behind to dark before; And only when our hands we lay, Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day, And there is darkness nevermore.

Reach downward to the sunless days Wherein our guides are blind as we, And faith is small and hope delays; Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise, And let us feel the light of Thee!

1884.



THE TWO LOVES

Smoothing soft the nestling head Of a maiden fancy-led, Thus a grave-eyed woman said:

"Richest gifts are those we make, Dearer than the love we take That we give for love's own sake.

"Well I know the heart's unrest; Mine has been the common quest, To be loved and therefore blest.

"Favors undeserved were mine; At my feet as on a shrine Love has laid its gifts divine.

"Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet With their sweetness came regret, And a sense of unpaid debt.

"Heart of mine unsatisfied, Was it vanity or pride That a deeper joy denied?

"Hands that ope but to receive Empty close; they only live Richly who can richly give.

"Still," she sighed, with moistening eyes, "Love is sweet in any guise; But its best is sacrifice!

"He who, giving, does not crave Likest is to Him who gave Life itself the loved to save.

"Love, that self-forgetful gives, Sows surprise of ripened sheaves, Late or soon its own receives."

1884.



ADJUSTMENT.

The tree of Faith its bare, dry boughs must shed That nearer heaven the living ones may climb; The false must fail, though from our shores of time The old lament be heard, "Great Pan is dead!" That wail is Error's, from his high place hurled; This sharp recoil is Evil undertrod; Our time's unrest, an angel sent of God Troubling with life the waters of the world. Even as they list the winds of the Spirit blow To turn or break our century-rusted vanes; Sands shift and waste; the rock alone remains Where, led of Heaven, the strong tides come and go, And storm-clouds, rent by thunderbolt and wind, Leave, free of mist, the permanent stars behind.

Therefore I trust, although to outward sense Both true and false seem shaken; I will hold With newer light my reverence for the old, And calmly wait the births of Providence. No gain is lost; the clear-eyed saints look down Untroubled on the wreck of schemes and creeds; Love yet remains, its rosary of good deeds Counting in task-field and o'erpeopled town; Truth has charmed life; the Inward Word survives, And, day by day, its revelation brings; Faith, hope, and charity, whatsoever things Which cannot be shaken, stand. Still holy lives Reveal the Christ of whom the letter told, And the new gospel verifies the old.

1885.



HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ.

I have attempted this paraphrase of the Hymns of the Brahmo Somaj of India, as I find them in Mozoomdar's account of the devotional exercises of that remarkable religious development which has attracted far less attention and sympathy from the Christian world than it deserves, as a fresh revelation of the direct action of the Divine Spirit upon the human heart.

I. The mercy, O Eternal One! By man unmeasured yet, In joy or grief, in shade or sun, I never will forget. I give the whole, and not a part, Of all Thou gayest me; My goods, my life, my soul and heart, I yield them all to Thee!

II. We fast and plead, we weep and pray, From morning until even; We feel to find the holy way, We knock at the gate of heaven And when in silent awe we wait, And word and sign forbear, The hinges of the golden gate Move, soundless, to our prayer! Who hears the eternal harmonies Can heed no outward word; Blind to all else is he who sees The vision of the Lord!

III. O soul, be patient, restrain thy tears, Have hope, and not despair; As a tender mother heareth her child God hears the penitent prayer. And not forever shall grief be thine; On the Heavenly Mother's breast, Washed clean and white in the waters of joy Shall His seeking child find rest. Console thyself with His word of grace, And cease thy wail of woe, For His mercy never an equal hath, And His love no bounds can know. Lean close unto Him in faith and hope; How many like thee have found In Him a shelter and home of peace, By His mercy compassed round! There, safe from sin and the sorrow it brings, They sing their grateful psalms, And rest, at noon, by the wells of God, In the shade of His holy palms!

1885.



REVELATION.

"And I went into the Vale of Beavor, and as I went I preached repentance to the people. And one morning, sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me. And it was said: All things come by Nature; and the Elements and the Stars came over me. And as I sat still and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true Voice which said: There is a living God who made all things. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished, and Life rose over all, and my heart was glad and I praised the Living God."—Journal of George Fox, 1690.

Still, as of old, in Beavor's Vale, O man of God! our hope and faith The Elements and Stars assail, And the awed spirit holds its breath, Blown over by a wind of death.

Takes Nature thought for such as we, What place her human atom fills, The weed-drift of her careless sea, The mist on her unheeding hills? What reeks she of our helpless wills?

Strange god of Force, with fear, not love, Its trembling worshipper! Can prayer Reach the shut ear of Fate, or move Unpitying Energy to spare? What doth the cosmic Vastness care?

In vain to this dread Unconcern For the All-Father's love we look; In vain, in quest of it, we turn The storied leaves of Nature's book, The prints her rocky tablets took.

I pray for faith, I long to trust; I listen with my heart, and hear A Voice without a sound: "Be just, Be true, be merciful, revere The Word within thee: God is near!

"A light to sky and earth unknown Pales all their lights: a mightier force Than theirs the powers of Nature own, And, to its goal as at its source, His Spirit moves the Universe.

"Believe and trust. Through stars and suns, Through life and death, through soul and sense, His wise, paternal purpose runs; The darkness of His providence Is star-lit with benign intents."

O joy supreme! I know the Voice, Like none beside on earth or sea; Yea, more, O soul of mine, rejoice, By all that He requires of me, I know what God himself must be.

No picture to my aid I call, I shape no image in my prayer; I only know in Him is all Of life, light, beauty, everywhere, Eternal Goodness here and there!

I know He is, and what He is, Whose one great purpose is the good Of all. I rest my soul on His Immortal Love and Fatherhood; And trust Him, as His children should.

I fear no more. The clouded face Of Nature smiles; through all her things Of time and space and sense I trace The moving of the Spirit's wings, And hear the song of hope she sings.

1886



VOLUME III. ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS and SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM

CONTENTS:

ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS:

TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE THE SLAVE-SHIPS EXPOSTULATION HYMN: "THOU, WHOSE PRESENCE WENT BEFORE" THE YANKEE GIRL THE HUNTERS OF MEN STANZAS FOR THE TIMES CLERICAL OPPRESSORS A SUMMONS TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS THE MORAL WARFARE RITNER THE PASTORAL LETTER HYMN: "O HOLY FATHER! JUST AND TRUE" THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER PENNSYLVANIA HALL THE NEW YEAR THE RELIC THE WORLD'S CONVENTION MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND TO FANEUIL HALL TO MASSACHUSETTS NEW HAMPSHIRE THE PINE-TREE TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN AT WASHINGTON THE BRANDED HAND THE FREED ISLANDS A LETTER LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND DANIEL NEALL SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT To DELAWARE YORKTOWN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE THE LOST STATESMAN THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS PAEAN THE CRISIS LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER DERNE A SABBATH SCENE IN THE EVIL DAY MOLOCH IN STATE STREET OFFICIAL PIETY THE RENDITION ARISEN AT LAST THE HASCHISH FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN BURIAL OF BARBER TO PENNSYLVANIA LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA A SONG FOR THE TIME WHAT OF THE DAY? A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS THE PANORAMA ON A PRAYER-BOOK THE SUMMONS TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD IN WAR TIME. TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWALL THY WILL BE DONE A WORD FOR THE HOUR "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT" TO JOHN C. FREMONT THE WATCHERS TO ENGLISHMEN MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS AT PORT ROYAL ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862 OF ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C. THE PROCLAMATION ANNIVERSARY POEM BARBARA FRIETCHIE HAT THE BIRDS SAID THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATRA LADS DEO! HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION AT NEWBURYPORT

AFTER THE WAR. THE PEACE AUTUMN TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG HOWARD AT ATLANTA THE EMANCIPATION GROUP THE JUBILEE SINGERS GARRISON



SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM:

THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME DEMOCRACY THE GALLOWS SEED-TIME AND HARVEST TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND THE HUMAN SACRIFICE SONGS OF LABOR DEDICATION THE SHOEMAKERS THE FISHERMEN THE LUMBERMEN THE SHIP-BUILDERS THE DROVERS THE HUSKERS THE REFORMER THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS THE PRISONER FOR DEBT THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS THE MEN OF OLD TO PIUS IX. CALEF IN BOSTON OUR STATE THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES THE PEACE OF EUROPE ASTRAEA THE DISENTHRALLED THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY THE DREAM OF PIO NONO THE VOICES THE NEW EXODUS THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND THE EVE OF ELECTION FROM PERUGIA ITALY FREEDOM IN BRAZIL AFTER ELECTION DISARMAMENT THE PROBLEM OUR COUNTRY ON THE BIG HORN

NOTES



ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS



TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

CHAMPION of those who groan beneath Oppression's iron hand In view of penury, hate, and death, I see thee fearless stand. Still bearing up thy lofty brow, In the steadfast strength of truth, In manhood sealing well the vow And promise of thy youth.

Go on, for thou hast chosen well; On in the strength of God! Long as one human heart shall swell Beneath the tyrant's rod. Speak in a slumbering nation's ear, As thou hast ever spoken, Until the dead in sin shall hear, The fetter's link be broken!

I love thee with a brother's love, I feel my pulses thrill, To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. My heart hath leaped to answer thine, And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior's at the shine And flash of kindred swords!

They tell me thou art rash and vain, A searcher after fame; That thou art striving but to gain A long-enduring name; That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand And steeled the Afric's heart, To shake aloft his vengeful brand, And rend his chain apart.

Have I not known thee well, and read Thy mighty purpose long? And watched the trials which have made Thy human spirit strong? And shall the slanderer's demon breath Avail with one like me, To dim the sunshine of my faith And earnest trust in thee?

Go on, the dagger's point may glare Amid thy pathway's gloom; The fate which sternly threatens there Is glorious martyrdom Then onward with a martyr's zeal; And wait thy sure reward When man to man no more shall kneel, And God alone be Lord!

1832.



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.

Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain of Hayti, was a slave on the plantation "de Libertas," belonging to M. Bayou. When the rising of the negroes took place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to join them until he had aided M. Bayou and his family to escape to Baltimore. The white man had discovered in Toussaint many noble qualities, and had instructed him in some of the first branches of education; and the preservation of his life was owing to the negro's gratitude for this kindness. In 1797, Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed, by the French government, General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo, and, as such, signed the Convention with General Maitland for the evacuation of the island by the British. From this period, until 1801, the island, under the government of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, and prosperous. The miserable attempt of Napoleon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, although it failed of its intended object, proved fatal to the negro chieftain. Treacherously seized by Leclerc, he was hurried on board a vessel by night, and conveyed to France, where he was confined in a cold subterranean dungeon, at Besancon, where, in April, 1803, he died. The treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in the murder of the Duke D'Enghien. It was the remark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West India Islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could not boast of a single name which deserves comparison with that of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down Its beauty on the Indian isle,— On broad green field and white-walled town; And inland waste of rock and wood, In searching sunshine, wild and rude, Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam, Soft as the landscape of a dream. All motionless and dewy wet, Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met The myrtle with its snowy bloom, Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom,— The white cecropia's silver rind Relieved by deeper green behind, The orange with its fruit of gold, The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, The passion-flower, with symbol holy, Twining its tendrils long and lowly, The rhexias dark, and cassia tall, And proudly rising over all, The kingly palm's imperial stem, Crowned with its leafy diadem, Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade, The fiery-winged cucullo played!

How lovely was thine aspect, then, Fair island of the Western Sea Lavish of beauty, even when Thy brutes were happier than thy men, For they, at least, were free! Regardless of thy glorious clime, Unmindful of thy soil of flowers, The toiling negro sighed, that Time No faster sped his hours. For, by the dewy moonlight still, He fed the weary-turning mill, Or bent him in the chill morass, To pluck the long and tangled grass, And hear above his scar-worn back The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack While in his heart one evil thought In solitary madness wrought, One baleful fire surviving still The quenching of the immortal mind, One sterner passion of his kind, Which even fetters could not kill, The savage hope, to deal, erelong, A vengeance bitterer than his wrong!

Hark to that cry! long, loud, and shrill, From field and forest, rock and hill, Thrilling and horrible it rang, Around, beneath, above; The wild beast from his cavern sprang, The wild bird from her grove! Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony Were mingled in that midnight cry; But like the lion's growl of wrath, When falls that hunter in his path Whose barbed arrow, deeply set, Is rankling in his bosom yet, It told of hate, full, deep, and strong, Of vengeance kindling out of wrong; It was as if the crimes of years— The unrequited toil, the tears, The shame and hate, which liken well Earth's garden to the nether hell— Had found in nature's self a tongue, On which the gathered horror hung; As if from cliff, and stream, and glen Burst on the' startled ears of men That voice which rises unto God, Solemn and stern,—the cry of blood! It ceased, and all was still once more, Save ocean chafing on his shore, The sighing of the wind between The broad banana's leaves of green, Or bough by restless plumage shook, Or murmuring voice of mountain brook. Brief was the silence. Once again Pealed to the skies that frantic yell, Glowed on the heavens a fiery stain, And flashes rose and fell; And painted on the blood-red sky, Dark, naked arms were tossed on high; And, round the white man's lordly hall, Trod, fierce and free, the brute he made; And those who crept along the wall, And answered to his lightest call With more than spaniel dread, The creatures of his lawless beck, Were trampling on his very neck And on the night-air, wild and clear, Rose woman's shriek of more than fear; For bloodied arms were round her thrown, And dark cheeks pressed against her own! Where then was he whose fiery zeal Had taught the trampled heart to feel, Until despair itself grew strong, And vengeance fed its torch from wrong? Now, when the thunderbolt is speeding; Now, when oppression's heart is bleeding; Now, when the latent curse of Time Is raining down in fire and blood, That curse which, through long years of crime, Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood,— Why strikes he not, the foremost one, Where murder's sternest deeds are done?

He stood the aged palms beneath, That shadowed o'er his humble door, Listening, with half-suspended breath, To the wild sounds of fear and death, Toussaint L'Ouverture! What marvel that his heart beat high! The blow for freedom had been given, And blood had answered to the cry Which Earth sent up to Heaven! What marvel that a fierce delight Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night, As groan and shout and bursting flame Told where the midnight tempest came, With blood and fire along its van, And death behind! he was a Man!

Yes, dark-souled chieftain! if the light Of mild Religion's heavenly ray Unveiled not to thy mental sight The lowlier and the purer way, In which the Holy Sufferer trod, Meekly amidst the sons of crime; That calm reliance upon God For justice in His own good time; That gentleness to which belongs Forgiveness for its many wrongs, Even as the primal martyr, kneeling For mercy on the evil-dealing; Let not the favored white man name Thy stern appeal, with words of blame. Then, injured Afric! for the shame Of thy own daughters, vengeance came Full on the scornful hearts of those, Who mocked thee in thy nameless woes, And to thy hapless children gave One choice,—pollution or the grave!

Has he not, with the light of heaven Broadly around him, made the same? Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven, And gloried in his ghastly shame? Kneeling amidst his brother's blood, To offer mockery unto God, As if the High and Holy One Could smile on deeds of murder done! As if a human sacrifice Were purer in His holy eyes, Though offered up by Christian hands, Than the foul rites of Pagan lands!

. . . . . . . . . . .

Sternly, amidst his household band, His carbine grasped within his hand, The white man stood, prepared and still, Waiting the shock of maddened men, Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when The horn winds through their caverned hill. And one was weeping in his sight, The sweetest flower of all the isle, The bride who seemed but yesternight Love's fair embodied smile. And, clinging to her trembling knee, Looked up the form of infancy, With tearful glance in either face The secret of its fear to trace.

"Ha! stand or die!" The white man's eye His steady musket gleamed along, As a tall Negro hastened nigh, With fearless step and strong. "What, ho, Toussaint!" A moment more, His shadow crossed the lighted floor. "Away!" he shouted; "fly with me, The white man's bark is on the sea; Her sails must catch the seaward wind, For sudden vengeance sweeps behind. Our brethren from their graves have spoken, The yoke is spurned, the chain is broken; On all the bills our fires are glowing, Through all the vales red blood is flowing No more the mocking White shall rest His foot upon the Negro's breast; No more, at morn or eve, shall drip The warm blood from the driver's whip Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn For all the wrongs his race have borne, Though for each drop of Negro blood The white man's veins shall pour a flood; Not all alone the sense of ill Around his heart is lingering still, Nor deeper can the white man feel The generous warmth of grateful zeal. Friends of the Negro! fly with me, The path is open to the sea: Away, for life!" He spoke, and pressed The young child to his manly breast, As, headlong, through the cracking cane, Down swept the dark insurgent train, Drunken and grim, with shout and yell Howled through the dark, like sounds from hell.

Far out, in peace, the white man's sail Swayed free before the sunrise gale. Cloud-like that island hung afar, Along the bright horizon's verge, O'er which the curse of servile war Rolled its red torrent, surge on surge; And he, the Negro champion, where In the fierce tumult struggled he? Go trace him by the fiery glare Of dwellings in the midnight air, The yells of triumph and despair, The streams that crimson to the sea!

Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb, Beneath Besancon's alien sky, Dark Haytien! for the time shall come, Yea, even now is nigh, When, everywhere, thy name shall be Redeemed from color's infamy; And men shall learn to speak of thee As one of earth's great spirits, born In servitude, and nursed in scorn, Casting aside the weary weight And fetters of its low estate, In that strong majesty of soul Which knows no color, tongue, or clime, Which still hath spurned the base control Of tyrants through all time! Far other hands than mine may wreathe The laurel round thy brow of death, And speak thy praise, as one whose word A thousand fiery spirits stirred, Who crushed his foeman as a worm, Whose step on human hearts fell firm:

Be mine the better task to find A tribute for thy lofty mind, Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone Some milder virtues all thine own, Some gleams of feeling pure and warm, Like sunshine on a sky of storm, Proofs that the Negro's heart retains Some nobleness amid its chains,— That kindness to the wronged is never Without its excellent reward, Holy to human-kind and ever Acceptable to God.

1833.



THE SLAVE-SHIPS.

"That fatal, that perfidious bark, Built I' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark." MILTON'S Lycidas.

"The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out,—an obstinate disease of the eyes,—contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several who were stopped in the attempt to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease extended to the crew; and one after another were smitten with it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves rendered unsalable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned!" Speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820.

In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease had been there; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted. The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival.— Bibliotheque Ophthalmologique for November, 1819.

"ALL ready?" cried the captain; "Ay, ay!" the seamen said; "Heave up the worthless lubbers,— The dying and the dead." Up from the slave-ship's prison Fierce, bearded heads were thrust: "Now let the sharks look to it,— Toss up the dead ones first!"

Corpse after corpse came up, Death had been busy there; Where every blow is mercy, Why should the spoiler spare? Corpse after corpse they cast Sullenly from the ship, Yet bloody with the traces Of fetter-link and whip.

Gloomily stood the captain, With his arms upon his breast, With his cold brow sternly knotted, And his iron lip compressed.

"Are all the dead dogs over?" Growled through that matted lip; "The blind ones are no better, Let's lighten the good ship."

Hark! from the ship's dark bosom, The very sounds of hell! The ringing clank of iron, The maniac's short, sharp yell! The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled; The starving infant's moan, The horror of a breaking heart Poured through a mother's groan.

Up from that loathsome prison The stricken blind ones cane Below, had all been darkness, Above, was still the same. Yet the holy breath of heaven Was sweetly breathing there, And the heated brow of fever Cooled in the soft sea air.

"Overboard with them, shipmates!" Cutlass and dirk were plied; Fettered and blind, one after one, Plunged down the vessel's side. The sabre smote above, Beneath, the lean shark lay, Waiting with wide and bloody jaw His quick and human prey.

God of the earth! what cries Rang upward unto thee? Voices of agony and blood, From ship-deck and from sea. The last dull plunge was heard, The last wave caught its stain, And the unsated shark looked up For human hearts in vain.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Red glowed the western waters, The setting sun was there, Scattering alike on wave and cloud His fiery mesh of hair. Amidst a group in blindness, A solitary eye Gazed, from the burdened slaver's deck, Into that burning sky.

"A storm," spoke out the gazer, "Is gathering and at hand; Curse on 't, I'd give my other eye For one firm rood of land." And then he laughed, but only His echoed laugh replied, For the blinded and the suffering Alone were at his side.

Night settled on the waters, And on a stormy heaven, While fiercely on that lone ship's track The thunder-gust was driven. "A sail!—thank God, a sail!" And as the helmsman spoke, Up through the stormy murmur A shout of gladness broke.

Down came the stranger vessel, Unheeding on her way, So near that on the slaver's deck Fell off her driven spray. "Ho! for the love of mercy, We're perishing and blind!" A wail of utter agony Came back upon the wind.

"Help us! for we are stricken With blindness every one; Ten days we've floated fearfully, Unnoting star or sun. Our ship 's the slaver Leon,— We've but a score on board; Our slaves are all gone over,— Help, for the love of God!"

On livid brows of agony The broad red lightning shone; But the roar of wind and thunder Stifled the answering groan; Wailed from the broken waters A last despairing cry, As, kindling in the stormy' light, The stranger ship went by.

. . . . . . . . .

In the sunny Guadaloupe A dark-hulled vessel lay, With a crew who noted never The nightfall or the day. The blossom of the orange Was white by every stream, And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird Were in the warns sunbeam.

And the sky was bright as ever, And the moonlight slept as well, On the palm-trees by the hillside, And the streamlet of the dell: And the glances of the Creole Were still as archly deep, And her smiles as full as ever Of passion and of sleep.

But vain were bird and blossom, The green earth and the sky, And the smile of human faces, To the slaver's darkened eye; At the breaking of the morning, At the star-lit evening time, O'er a world of light and beauty Fell the blackness of his crime.

1834.



EXPOSTULATION.

Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of delegates from all the anti- slavery organizations in New England, held at Boston in May, 1834, was chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of New England. Toward the close of the address occurred the passage which suggested these lines. "The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States—the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king—cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age?" —Dr. Follen's Address.

"Genius of America!—Spirit of our free institutions!—where art thou? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! son of the morning,—how art thou fallen from Heaven! Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming! The kings of the earth cry out to thee, Aha! Aha! Art thou become like unto us?"—Speech of Samuel J. May.

OUR fellow-countrymen in chains! Slaves, in a land of light and law! Slaves, crouching on the very plains Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war! A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood, A. wail where Camden's martyrs fell, By every shrine of patriot blood, From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well!

By storied hill and hallowed grot, By mossy wood and marshy glen, Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, And hurrying shout of Marion's men! The groan of breaking hearts is there, The falling lash, the fetter's clank! Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank!

What, ho! our countrymen in chains! The whip on woman's shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with the stains Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! Americans to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold!

Speak! shall their agony of prayer Come thrilling to our hearts in vain? To us whose fathers scorned to bear The paltry menace of a chain; To us, whose boast is loud and long Of holy Liberty and Light; Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong Plead vainly for their plundered Right?

What! shall we send, with lavish breath, Our sympathies across the wave, Where Manhood, on the field of death, Strikes for his freedom or a grave? Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning, And millions hail with pen and tongue Our light on all her altars burning?

Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall, And Poland, gasping on her lance, The impulse of our cheering call? And shall the slave, beneath our eye, Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain? And toss his fettered arms on high, And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain?

Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be A refuge for the stricken slave? And shall the Russian serf go free By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave? And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane Relax the iron hand of pride, And bid his bondmen cast the chain From fettered soul and limb aside?

Shall every flap of England's flag Proclaim that all around are free, From farthest Ind to each blue crag That beetles o'er the Western Sea? And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, When Freedom's fire is dim with us, And round our country's altar clings The damning shade of Slavery's curse?

Go, let us ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland's throat; And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line To spare the struggling Suliote; Will not the scorching answer come From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ "Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, Then turn, and ask the like of us!"

Just God! and shall we calmly rest, The Christian's scorn, the heathen's mirth, Content to live the lingering jest And by-word of a mocking Earth? Shall our own glorious land retain That curse which Europe scorns to bear? Shall our own brethren drag the chain Which not even Russia's menials wear?

Up, then, in Freedom's manly part, From graybeard eld to fiery youth, And on the nation's naked heart Scatter the living coals of Truth! Up! while ye slumber, deeper yet The shadow of our fame is growing! Up! while ye pause, our sun may set In blood, around our altars flowing!

Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, The gathered wrath of God and man, Like that which wasted Egypt's earth, When hail and fire above it ran. Hear ye no warnings in the air? Feel ye no earthquake underneath? Up, up! why will ye slumber where The sleeper only wakes in death?

Rise now for Freedom! not in strife Like that your sterner fathers saw, The awful waste of human life, The glory and the guilt of war:' But break the chain, the yoke remove, And smite to earth Oppression's rod, With those mild arms of Truth and Love, Made mighty through the living God!

Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, And leave no traces where it stood; Nor longer let its idol drink His daily cup of human blood; But rear another altar there, To Truth and Love and Mercy given, And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, Shall call an answer down from Heaven!

1834



HYMN.

Written for the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham Street Chapel, New York, held on the 4th of the seventh month, 1834.

O THOU, whose presence went before Our fathers in their weary way, As with Thy chosen moved of yore The fire by night, the cloud by day!

When from each temple of the free, A nation's song ascends to Heaven, Most Holy Father! unto Thee May not our humble prayer be given?

Thy children all, though hue and form Are varied in Thine own good will, With Thy own holy breathings warm, And fashioned in Thine image still.

We thank Thee, Father! hill and plain Around us wave their fruits once more, And clustered vine, and blossomed grain, Are bending round each cottage door.

And peace is here; and hope and love Are round us as a mantle thrown, And unto Thee, supreme above, The knee of prayer is bowed alone.

But oh, for those this day can bring, As unto us, no joyful thrill; For those who, under Freedom's wing, Are bound in Slavery's fetters still:

For those to whom Thy written word Of light and love is never given; For those whose ears have never heard The promise and the hope of heaven!

For broken heart, and clouded mind, Whereon no human mercies fall; Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined, Who, as a Father, pitiest all!

And grant, O Father! that the time Of Earth's deliverance may be near, When every land and tongue and clime The message of Thy love shall hear;

When, smitten as with fire from heaven, The captive's chain shall sink in dust, And to his fettered soul be given The glorious freedom of the just,



THE YANKEE GIRL.

SHE sings by her wheel at that low cottage-door, Which the long evening shadow is stretching before, With a music as sweet as the music which seems Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams!

How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky! And lightly and freely her dark tresses play O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they!

Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-door, The haughty and rich to the humble and poor? 'T is the great Southern planter, the master who waves His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.

"Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin, Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin; Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel, Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel!

"But thou art too lovely and precious a gem To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them; For shame, Ellen, shame, cast thy bondage aside, And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.

"Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong, But where flowers are blossoming all the year long, Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home, And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom!

"Oh, come to my home, where my servants shall all Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call; They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe, And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law."

"Oh, could ye have seen her—that pride of our girls— Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls, With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel, And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel!

"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou halt sold; Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!

"And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours, And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy' flowers; But dearer the blast round our mountains which raves, Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves!

"Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel, With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel; Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!"

1835.



THE HUNTERS OF MEN.

These lines were written when the orators of the American Colonization Society were demanding that the free blacks should be sent to Africa, and opposing Emancipation unless expatriation followed. See the report of the proceedings of the society at its annual meeting in 1834.

HAVE ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,—the hunting of men? The lords of our land to this hunting have gone, As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn; Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip! All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match, Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch. So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,—the hunting of men!

Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind, Just screening the politic statesman behind; The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer, The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there. And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid, For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on the rein, How blithely she rides to the hunting of men!

Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see, In this "land of the brave and this home of the free." Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to Maine, All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein; Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin! Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey? Will their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when All roughly they ride to the hunting of men?

Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint, Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the saint. The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still, Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill. Haste, alms for our hunters! the hunted once more Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore What right have they here in the home of the white, Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right? Ho! alms for the hunters! or never again Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men!

Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay, When their pride and their glory are melting away? The parson has turned; for, on charge of his own, Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye. Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail, And the head of his steed take the place of the tail. Oh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then, For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men?

1835.



STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

The "Times" referred to were those evil times of the pro-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, in which a demand was made for the suppression of free speech, lest it should endanger the foundation of commercial society.

Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the soil whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn?

And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver's whip? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak but as our masters please.

Shall outraged Nature cease to feel? Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow? Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel, The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow, Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth, our Country, and the Slave?

Of human skulls that shrine was made, Round which the priests of Mexico Before their loathsome idol prayed; Is Freedom's altar fashioned so? And must we yield to Freedom's God, As offering meet, the negro's blood?

Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest hell? Shall freemen lock the indignant thought? Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell? Shall Honor bleed?—shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?

No; by each spot of haunted ground, Where Freedom weeps her children's fall; By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound; By Griswold's stained and shattered wall; By Warren's ghost, by Langdon's shade; By all the memories of our dead.

By their enlarging souls, which burst The bands and fetters round them set; By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed Within our inmost bosoms, yet, By all above, around, below, Be ours the indignant answer,—No!

No; guided by our country's laws, For truth, and right, and suffering man, Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause, As Christians may, as freemen can! Still pouring on unwilling ears That truth oppression only fears.

What! shall we guard our neighbor still, While woman shrieks beneath his rod, And while he tramples down at will The image of a common God? Shall watch and ward be round him set, Of Northern nerve and bayonet?

And shall we know and share with him The danger and the growing shame? And see our Freedom's light grow dim, Which should have filled the world with flame? And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, A world's reproach around us burn?

Is 't not enough that this is borne? And asks our haughty neighbor more? Must fetters which his slaves have worn Clank round the Yankee farmer's door? Must he be told, beside his plough, What he must speak, and when, and how?

Must he be told his freedom stands On Slavery's dark foundations strong; On breaking hearts and fettered hands, On robbery, and crime, and wrong? That all his fathers taught is vain,— That Freedom's emblem is the chain?

Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn! False, foul, profane! Go, teach as well Of holy Truth from Falsehood born! Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell! Of Virtue in the arms of Vice! Of Demons planting Paradise!

Rail on, then, brethren of the South, Ye shall not hear the truth the less; No seal is on the Yankee's mouth, No fetter on the Yankee's press! From our Green Mountains to the sea, One voice shall thunder, We are free!



CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.

In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, S.C., on the 4th of the ninth month, 1835, published in the Courier of that city, it is stated: "The clergy of all denominations attended in a body, lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene!"

JUST God! and these are they Who minister at thine altar, God of Right! Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel's Ark of light!

What! preach, and kidnap men? Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor? Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then Bolt hard the captive's door?

What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and save The homeless and the outcast, fettering down The tasked and plundered slave!

Pilate and Herod, friends! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine! Just God and holy! is that church, which lends Strength to the spoiler, thine?

Paid hypocrites, who turn Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book Of those high words of truth which search and burn In warning and rebuke;

Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, Ye pile your own full board.

How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong At Thy own altars pray?

Is not Thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? Shall not the living God of all the earth, And heaven above, do right?

Woe, then, to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down! To all who plunder from the immortal mind Its bright and glorious crown!

Woe to the priesthood! woe To those whose hire is with the price of blood; Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go, The searching truths of God!

Their glory and their might Shall perish; and their very names shall be Vile before all the people, in the light Of a world's liberty.

Oh, speed the moment on When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known As in their home above.

1836.



A SUMMONS

Written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions in the House of Representatives, and the passage of Calhoun's "Bill for excluding Papers written or printed, touching the subject of Slavery, from the U. S. Post-office," in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Pinckney's resolutions were in brief that Congress had no authority to interfere in any way with slavery in the States; that it ought not to interfere with it in the District of Columbia, and that all resolutions to that end should be laid on the table without printing. Mr. Calhoun's bill made it a penal offence for post-masters in any State, District, or Territory "knowingly to deliver, to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, District, or Territory, their circulation was prohibited."

MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone? Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone?

Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now?

Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging, In God's name, let us speak while there is time! Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, Silence is crime!

What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter, For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us, God and our charter?

Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters, Here the false jurist human rights deny, And in the church, their proud and skilled abettors Make truth a lie?

Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel Both man and God?

Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger Day after day?

Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains; From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie; From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear, cold sky;

From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges; from the fisher's skiff, With white sail swaying to the billows' motion Round rock and cliff;

From the free fireside of her untought farmer; From her free laborer at his loom and wheel; From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the hammer, Rings the red steel;

From each and all, if God hath not forsaken Our land, and left us to an evil choice, Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken A People's voice.

Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave; And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it Within her grave.

Oh, let that voice go forth! The bondman sighing By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, Revive again.

Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing Sadly upon us from afar shall smile, And unto God devout thanksgiving raising Bless us the while.

Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, For the deliverance of a groaning earth, For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly, Let it go forth!

Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter With all they left ye perilled and at stake? Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar The fire awake.

Prayer-strenthened for the trial, come together, Put on the harness for the moral fight, And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father, Maintain the right

1836.



TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.

Thomas Shipley of Philadelphia was a lifelong Christian philanthropist, and advocate of emancipation. At his funeral thousands of colored people came to take their last look at their friend and protector. He died September 17, 1836.

GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest! The flowers of Eden round thee blowing, And on thine ear the murmurs blest Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!

Beneath that Tree of Life which gives To all the earth its healing leaves In the white robe of angels clad, And wandering by that sacred river, Whose streams of holiness make glad The city of our God forever!

Gentlest of spirits! not for thee Our tears are shed, our sighs are given; Why mourn to know thou art a free Partaker of the joys of heaven? Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death; And beautiful as sky and earth, When autumn's sun is downward going, The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing!

But woe for us! who linger still With feebler strength and hearts less lowly, And minds less steadfast to the will Of Him whose every work is holy. For not like thine, is crucified The spirit of our human pride And at the bondman's tale of woe, And for the outcast and forsaken, Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, Our weaker sympathies awaken.

Darkly upon our struggling way The storm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keeping, Oh, for that hidden strength which can Nerve unto death the inner man Oh, for thy spirit, tried and true, And constant in the hour of trial, Prepared to suffer, or to do, In meekness and in self-denial.

Oh, for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining; By man deserted and reviled, Yet faithful to its trust remaining. Still prompt and resolute to save From scourge and chain the hunted slave; Unwavering in the Truth's defence, Even where the fires of Hate were burning, The unquailing eye of innocence Alone upon the oppressor turning!

O loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee. The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee; And grateful tears, like summer rain, Quickened its dying grass again! And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine, Shall cone the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine Recalling memories sweet and holy!

Oh, for the death the righteous die! An end, like autumn's day declining, On human hearts, as on the sky, With holier, tenderer beauty shining; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening heaven! As if that pure and blessed light, From off the Eternal altar flowing, Were bathing, in its upward flight, The spirit to its worship going!

1836.



THE MORAL WARFARE.

WHEN Freedom, on her natal day, Within her war-rocked cradle lay, An iron race around her stood, Baptized her infant brow in blood; And, through the storm which round her swept, Their constant ward and watching kept.

Then, where our quiet herds repose, The roar of baleful battle rose, And brethren of a common tongue To mortal strife as tigers sprung, And every gift on Freedom's shrine Was man for beast, and blood for wine!

Our fathers to their graves have gone; Their strife is past, their triumph won; But sterner trials wait the race Which rises in their honored place; A moral warfare with the crime And folly of an evil time.

So let it be. In God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons He has given,— The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.

1836.



RITNER.

Written on reading the Message of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 1836. The fact redounds to the credit and serves to perpetuate the memory of the independent farmer and high-souled statesman, that he alone of all the Governors of the Union in 1836 met the insulting demands and menaces of the South in a manner becoming a freeman and hater of Slavery, in his message to the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

THANK God for the token! one lip is still free, One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee! Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm; When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God, Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood; When the recreant North has forgotten her trust, And the lip of her honor is low in the dust,— Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken! Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken!

O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown! Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone! To the land of the South, of the charter and chain, Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain; Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips! Where "chivalric" honor means really no more Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor! Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high, And the words which he utters, are—Worship, or die!

Right onward, oh, speed it! Wherever the blood Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God; Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining; Wherever the lash of the driver is twining; Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart, Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart; Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, In silence and darkness, the God-given mind; There, God speed it onward! its truth will be felt, The bonds shall be loosened, the iron shall melt.

And oh, will the land where the free soul of Penn Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen; Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went forth To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of Earth; Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst; Where first for the wronged and the weak of their kind, The Christian and statesman their efforts combined; Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain? Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain?

No, Ritner! her "Friends" at thy warning shall stand Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band; Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime; Turning back front the cavil of creeds, to unite Once again for the poor in defence of the Right; Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong, Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along; Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain, And counting each trial for Truth as their gain!

And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true, Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due; Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine, On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine,— The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to brave The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave; Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South One brow for the brand, for the padlock one mouth? They cater to tyrants? They rivet the chain, Which their fathers smote off, on the negro again?

No, never! one voice, like the sound in the cloud, When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud, Wherever the foot of the freeman hath pressed From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the West, On the South-going breezes shall deepen and grow Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble below! The voice of a people, uprisen, awake, Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at stake, Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from each height, "Our Country and Liberty! God for the Right!"



THE PASTORAL LETTER

The General Association of Congregational ministers in Massachusetts met at Brookfield, June 27, 1837, and issued a Pastoral Letter to the churches under its care. The immediate occasion of it was the profound sensation produced by the recent public lecture in Massachusetts by Angelina and Sarah Grimke, two noble women from South Carolina, who bore their testimony against slavery. The Letter demanded that "the perplexed and agitating subjects which are now common amongst us... should not be forced upon any church as matters for debate, at the hazard of alienation and division," and called attention to the dangers now seeming "to threaten the female character with widespread and permanent injury."

So, this is all,—the utmost reach Of priestly power the mind to fetter! When laymen think, when women preach, A war of words, a "Pastoral Letter!" Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes! Was it thus with those, your predecessors, Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes Their loving-kindness to transgressors?

A "Pastoral Letter," grave and dull; Alas! in hoof and horns and features, How different is your Brookfield bull From him who bellows from St. Peter's Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, Think ye, can words alone preserve them? Your wiser fathers taught the arm And sword of temporal power to serve them.

Oh, glorious days, when Church and State Were wedded by your spiritual fathers! And on submissive shoulders sat Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers. No vile "itinerant" then could mar The beauty of your tranquil Zion, But at his peril of the scar Of hangman's whip and branding-iron.

Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church Of heretic and mischief-maker, And priest and bailiff joined in search, By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker The stocks were at each church's door, The gallows stood on Boston Common, A Papist's ears the pillory bore,— The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!

Your fathers dealt not as ye deal With "non-professing" frantic teachers; They bored the tongue with red-hot steel, And flayed the backs of "female preachers." Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue, And Salem's streets could tell their story, Of fainting woman dragged along, Gashed by the whip accursed and gory!

And will ye ask me, why this taunt Of memories sacred from the scorner? And why with reckless hand I plant A nettle on the graves ye honor? Not to reproach New England's dead This record from the past I summon, Of manhood to the scaffold led, And suffering and heroic woman.

No, for yourselves alone, I turn The pages of intolerance over, That, in their spirit, dark and stern, Ye haply may your own discover! For, if ye claim the "pastoral right" To silence Freedom's voice of warning, And from your precincts shut the light Of Freedom's day around ye dawning;

If when an earthquake voice of power And signs in earth and heaven are showing That forth, in its appointed hour, The Spirit of the Lord is going And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light On kindred, tongue, and people breaking, Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, In glory and in strength are waking!

When for the sighing of the poor, And for the needy, God bath risen, And chains are breaking, and a door Is opening for the souls in prison! If then ye would, with puny hands, Arrest the very work of Heaven, And bind anew the evil bands Which God's right arm of power hath riven;

What marvel that, in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of your dominion?

A glorious remnant linger yet, Whose lips are wet at Freedom's fountains, The coming of whose welcome feet Is beautiful upon our mountains! Men, who the gospel tidings bring Of Liberty and Love forever, Whose joy is an abiding spring, Whose peace is as a gentle river!

But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale Of Carolina's high-souled daughters, Which echoes here the mournful wail Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, Close while ye may the public ear, With malice vex, with slander wound them, The pure and good shall throng to hear, And tried and manly hearts surround them.

Oh, ever may the power which led Their way to such a fiery trial, And strengthened womanhood to tread The wine-press of such self-denial, Be round them in an evil land, With wisdom and with strength from Heaven, With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand, And Deborah's song, for triumph given!

And what are ye who strive with God Against the ark of His salvation, Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, With blessings for a dying nation? What, but the stubble and the hay To perish, even as flax consuming, With all that bars His glorious way, Before the brightness of His coming?

And thou, sad Angel, who so long Hast waited for the glorious token, That Earth from all her bonds of wrong To liberty and light has broken,—

Angel of Freedom! soon to thee The sounding trumpet shall be given, And over Earth's full jubilee Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven!

1837.



HYMN

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 bath 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?