ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER CONTENTS: TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND TO FANEUIL HALL TO MASSACHUSETTS NEW HAMPSHIRE THE PINE-TREETO A SOUTHERN STATESMANAT WASHINGTONTHE BRANDED HANDTHE FREED ISLANDSA LETTERLINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIENDDANIEL NEALLSONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERTTo DELAWAREYORKTOWNRANDOLPH OF ROANOKETHE LOST STATESMANTHE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUETHE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERSPAEANTHE CRISISLINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND. The five poems immediately following indicate the intense feeling of thefriends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vastterritory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States. Up the hillside, down the glen, Rouse the sleeping citizen;Summon out the might of men! Like a lion growling low, Like a night-storm rising slow, Like the tread of unseen foe; It is coming, it is nigh!Stand your homes and altars by;On your own free thresholds die. Clang the bells in all your spires;On the gray hills of your siresFling to heaven your signal-fires. From Wachuset, lone and bleak, Unto Berkshire's tallest peak, Let the flame-tongued heralds speak. Oh, for God and duty stand, Heart to heart and hand to hand, Round the old graves of the land. Whoso shrinks or falters now, Whoso to the yoke would bow, Brand the craven on his brow! Freedom's soil hath only placeFor a free and fearless race, None for traitors false and base. Perish party, perish clan;Strike together while ye can, Like the arm of one strong man. Like that angel's voice sublime, Heard above a world of crime, Crying of the end of time; With one heart and with one mouth, Let the North unto the SouthSpeak the word befitting both. "What though Issachar be strongYe may load his back with wrongOvermuch and over long: "Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done. "Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strainLink by link shall snap in twain. "Vainly shall your sand-wrought ropeBind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope! "Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze. "Take your land of sun and bloom;Only leave to Freedom roomFor her plough, and forge, and loom; "Take your slavery-blackened vales;Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails. "Boldly, or with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart;Break the Union's mighty heart; "Work the ruin, if ye will;Pluck upon your heads an illWhich shall grow and deepen still. "With your bondman's right arm bare, With his heart of black despair, Stand alone, if stand ye dare! "Onward with your fell design;Dig the gulf and draw the lineFire beneath your feet the mine! "Deeply, when the wide abyssYawns between your land and this, Shall ye feel your helplessness. "By the hearth, and in the bed, Shaken by a look or tread, Ye shall own a guilty dread. "And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soilLike a fire shall burn and spoil. "Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys flow;-- "And when vengeance clouds your skies, Hither shall ye turn your eyes, As the lost on Paradise! "We but ask our rocky strand, Freedom's true and brother band, Freedom's strong and honest hand; "Valleys by the slave untrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' God!"1844. TO FANEUIL HALL. Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Massachusetts Freeman" for ameeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Massachusetts, withoutdistinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and theaggressions of South Carolina, and in favor of decisive action againstslavery. MEN! if manhood still ye claim, If the Northern pulse can thrill, Roused by wrong or stung by shame, Freely, strongly still;Let the sounds of traffic dieShut the mill-gate, leave the stall, Fling the axe and hammer by;Throng to Faneuil Hall! Wrongs which freemen never brooked, Dangers grim and fierce as they, Which, like couching lions, lookedOn your fathers' way;These your instant zeal demand, Shaking with their earthquake-callEvery rood of Pilgrim land, Ho, to Faneuil Hall! From your capes and sandy bars, From your mountain-ridges cold, Through whose pines the westering starsStoop their crowns of gold;Come, and with your footsteps wakeEchoes from that holy wall;Once again, for Freedom's sake, Rock your fathers' hall! Up, and tread beneath your feetEvery cord by party spun:Let your hearts together beatAs the heart of one. Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, Let them rise or let them fall:Freedom asks your common aid, --Up, to Faneuil Hall! Up, and let each voice that speaksRing from thence to Southern plains, Sharply as the blow which breaksPrison-bolts and chains!Speak as well becomes the freeDreaded more than steel or ball, Shall your calmest utterance be, Heard from Faneuil Hall! Have they wronged us? Let us thenRender back nor threats nor prayers;Have they chained our free-born men?Let us unchain theirs!Up, your banner leads the van, Blazoned, "Liberty for all!" Finish what your sires began!Up, to Faneuil Hall! TO MASSACHUSETTS. WHAT though around thee blazesNo fiery rallying sign?From all thy own high places, Give heaven the light of thine!What though unthrilled, unmoving, The statesman stand apart, And comes no warm approvingFrom Mammon's crowded mart? Still, let the land be shakenBy a summons of thine own!By all save truth forsaken, Stand fast with that alone!Shrink not from strife unequal!With the best is always hope;And ever in the sequelGod holds the right side up! But when, with thine uniting, Come voices long and loud, And far-off hills are writingThy fire-words on the cloud;When from Penobscot's fountainsA deep response is heard, And across the Western mountainsRolls back thy rallying word; Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view?Oh, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true!Fling abroad thy scrolls of FreedomSpeed them onward far and fastOver hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast! Lo! the Empire State is shakingThe shackles from her hand;With the rugged North is wakingThe level sunset land!On they come, the free battalionsEast and West and North they come, And the heart-beat of the millionsIs the beat of Freedom's drum. "To the tyrant's plot no favorNo heed to place-fed knaves!Bar and bolt the door foreverAgainst the land of slaves!"Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread!The land is roused, --its spiritWas sleeping, but not dead!1844. NEW HAMPSHIRE. GOD bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaksOnce more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. The long-bound vassal of the exulting SouthFor very shame her self-forged chain has broken;Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken!Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changesThe tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe;To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, New Hampshire thunders an indignant No!Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart, Look upward to those Northern mountains cold, Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled, And gather strength to bear a manlier partAll is not lost. The angel of God's blessingEncamps with Freedom on the field of fight;Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing, Unlooked-for allies, striking for the rightCourage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true:What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do?1845. THE PINE-TREE. Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillipshad been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846. LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State'srusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner'stattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Biblesround the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!"Rise again for home and freedom! set the battlein array!What the fathers did of old time we their sonsmust do to-day. Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltrypedler cries;Shall the good State sink her honor that yourgambling stocks may rise?Would ye barter man for cotton? That yourgains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our childrenthrough the fire?Is the dollar only real? God and truth and righta dream?Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhoodkick the beam? O my God! for that free spirit, which of old inBoston townSmote the Province House with terror, struck thecrest of Andros down!For another strong-voiced Adams in the city'sstreets to cry, "Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feeton Mammon's lie!Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton'slatest pound, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep theheart o' the Bay State sound!"Where's the man for Massachusetts! Where'sthe voice to speak her free?Where's the hand to light up bonfires from hermountains to the sea?Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumbin her despair?Has she none to break the silence? Has she noneto do and dare?O my God! for one right worthy to lift up herrusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner'stattered field1840. TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN. John C. Calhoun, who had strongly urged the extension of slave territoryby the annexation of Texas, even if it should involve a war withEngland, was unwilling to promote the acquisition of Oregon, which wouldenlarge the Northern domain of freedom, and pleaded as an excuse theperil of foreign complications which he had defied when the interestsof slavery were involved. Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fearWail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear, Actieon-like, the bay of thine own hounds, Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds?Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand, With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack, To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land, Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back, These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track?Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue, Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung, O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man?How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting, And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting, Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star!The Fates are just; they give us but our own;Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown. There is an Eastern story, not unknown, Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skillCalled demons up his water-jars to fill;Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, kept pouring still. In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, Faster and faster were the buckets brought, Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drownedSo, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takesCraftiness in its self-set snare, and makesThe wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, That the roused spirits of DemocracyMay leave to freer States the same wide doorThrough which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in, From out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin, Of the stormed-city and the ghastly plain, Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, The myriad-handed pioneer may pour, And the wild West with the roused North combineAnd heave the engineer of evil with his mine. 1846. AT WASHINGTON. Suggested by a visit to the city of Washington, in the 12th month of1845. WITH a cold and wintry noon-lightOn its roofs and steeples shed, Shadows weaving with the sunlightFrom the gray sky overhead, Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-builttown outspread. Through this broad street, restless ever, Ebbs and flows a human tide, Wave on wave a living river;Wealth and fashion side by side;Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quickcurrent glide. Underneath yon dome, whose copingSprings above them, vast and tall, Grave men in the dust are gropingFor the largess, base and small, Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbswhich from its table fall. Base of heart! They vilely barterHonor's wealth for party's place;Step by step on Freedom's charterLeaving footprints of disgrace;For to-day's poor pittance turning from the greathope of their race. Yet, where festal lamps are throwingGlory round the dancer's hair, Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowingBackward on the sunset air;And the low quick pulse of music beats its measuresweet and rare. There to-night shall woman's glances, Star-like, welcome give to them;Fawning fools with shy advancesSeek to touch their garments' hem, With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds whichGod and Truth condemn. From this glittering lie my visionTakes a broader, sadder range, Full before me have arisenOther pictures dark and strange;From the parlor to the prison must the scene andwitness change. Hark! the heavy gate is swingingOn its hinges, harsh and slow;One pale prison lamp is flingingOn a fearful group belowSuch a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it doesnot show. Pitying God! Is that a womanOn whose wrist the shackles clash?Is that shriek she utters human, Underneath the stinging lash?Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sadprocession flash? Still the dance goes gayly onwardWhat is it to Wealth and PrideThat without the stars are lookingOn a scene which earth should hide?That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rockingon Potomac's tide! Vainly to that mean AmbitionWhich, upon a rival's fall, Winds above its old condition, With a reptile's slimy crawl, Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slavein anguish call. Vainly to the child of Fashion, Giving to ideal woeGraceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go;Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful thehollow show! Nay, my words are all too sweeping:In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping;Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall beartheir generous part. And from yonder sunny valleys, Southward in the distance lost, Freedom yet shall summon alliesWorthier than the North can boast, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling atseverer cost. Now, the soul alone is willingFaint the heart and weak the knee;And as yet no lip is thrillingWith the mighty words, "Be Free!"Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but hisadvent is to be! Meanwhile, turning from the revelTo the prison-cell my sight, For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of theSlaves, to-night! "To thy duty now and ever!Dream no more of rest or stayGive to Freedom's great endeavorAll thou art and hast to-day:"Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, orseems to say. Ye with heart and vision giftedTo discern and love the right, Whose worn faces have been liftedTo the slowly-growing light, Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowlyback the murk of night Ye who through long years of trialStill have held your purpose fast, While a lengthening shade the dialfrom the westering sunshine cast, And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo ofthe last! O my brothers! O my sistersWould to God that ye were near, Gazing with me down the vistasOf a sorrow strange and drear;Would to God that ye were listeners to the VoiceI seem to hear! With the storm above us driving, With the false earth mined below, Who shall marvel if thus strivingWe have counted friend as foe;Unto one another giving in the darkness blow forblow. Well it may be that our naturesHave grown sterner and more hard, And the freshness of their featuresSomewhat harsh and battle-scarred, And their harmonies of feeling overtasked andrudely jarred. Be it so. It should not swerve usFrom a purpose true and brave;Dearer Freedom's rugged serviceThan the pastime of the slave;Better is the storm above it than the quiet ofthe grave. Let us then, uniting, buryAll our idle feuds in dust, And to future conflicts carryMutual faith and common trust;Always he who most forgiveth in his brother ismost just. From the eternal shadow roundingAll our sun and starlight here, Voices of our lost ones soundingBid us be of heart and cheer, Through the silence, down the spaces, falling onthe inward ear. Know we not our dead are lookingDownward with a sad surprise, All our strife of words rebukingWith their mild and loving eyes?Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloudtheir blessed skies? Let us draw their mantles o'er usWhich have fallen in our way;Let us do the work before us, Cheerly, bravely, while we may, Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it isnot day! THE BRANDED HAND. Captain Jonathan Walker, of Harwich, Mass. , was solicited by severalfugitive slaves at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them in his vessel tothe British West Indies. Although well aware of the great hazard of theenterprise he attempted to comply with the request, but was seized atsea by an American vessel, consigned to the authorities at Key West, andthence sent back to Pensacola, where, after a long and rigorousconfinement in prison, he was tried and sentenced to be branded on hisright hand with the letters "S. S. " (slave-stealer) and amerced in aheavy fine. WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thythoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day;With that front of calm endurance, on whosesteady nerve in vainPressed the iron of the prison, smote the fieryshafts of pain. Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutalcravens aimTo make God's truth thy falsehood, His holiestwork thy shame?When, all blood-quenched, from the torture theiron was withdrawn, How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools toscorn! They change to wrong the duty which God hathwritten outOn the great heart of humanity, too legible fordoubt!They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched fromfootsole up to crown, Give to shame what God hath given unto honorand renown! Why, that brand is highest honor! than its tracesnever yetUpon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazonset;And thy unborn generations, as they tread ourrocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of their father'sbranded hand! As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back-from Syrian warsThe scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars, The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span, So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend ofGod and man. He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, Thou for His living presence in the bound andbleeding slave;He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God. For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whipo'er him swung, From the tortured truths of freedom the lie ofslavery wrung, And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God-deserted shrine, Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured thebondman's blood for wine; While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviourknelt, And spurned, the while, the temple where a presentSaviour dwelt;Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prisonshadows dim, And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him! In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above andwave below, Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babblingschoolmen know;God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angelsonly can, That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope ofheaven is Man! That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of lawand creed, In the depth of God's great goodness may findmercy in his need;But woe to him who crushes the soul with chainand rod, And herds with lower natures the awful form of God! Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughmanof the wave!Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation tothe Slave!"Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whosoreads may feelHis heart swell strong within him, his sinewschange to steel. Hold it up before our sunshine, up against ourNorthern air;Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there!Take it henceforth for your standard, like theBruce's heart of yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that handbe seen before! And the masters of the slave-land shall tremble atthat sign, When it points its finger Southward along thePuritan lineCan the craft of State avail them? Can a Christlesschurch withstand, In the van of Freedom's onset, the coming of thatband?1846. THE FREED ISLANDS. Written for the anniversary celebration of the first of August, at Milton, 7846. A FEW brief years have passed awaySince Britain drove her million slavesBeneath the tropic's fiery rayGod willed their freedom; and to-dayLife blooms above those island graves! He spoke! across the Carib Sea, We heard the clash of breaking chains, And felt the heart-throb of the free, The first, strong pulse of libertyWhich thrilled along the bondman's veins. Though long delayed, and far, and slow, The Briton's triumph shall be oursWears slavery here a prouder browThan that which twelve short years agoScowled darkly from her island bowers? Mighty alike for good or illWith mother-land, we fully shareThe Saxon strength, the nerve of steel, The tireless energy of will, The power to do, the pride to dare. What she has done can we not do?Our hour and men are both at hand;The blast which Freedom's angel blewO'er her green islands, echoes throughEach valley of our forest land. Hear it, old Europe! we have swornThe death of slavery. When it falls, Look to your vassals in their turn, Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn, Your prisons and your palace walls! O kingly mockers! scoffing showWhat deeds in Freedom's name we do;Yet know that every taunt ye throwAcross the waters, goads our slowProgression towards the right and true. Not always shall your outraged poor, Appalled by democratic crime, Grind as their fathers ground before;The hour which sees our prison doorSwing wide shall be their triumph time. On then, my brothers! every blowYe deal is felt the wide earth through;Whatever here uplifts the lowOr humbles Freedom's hateful foe, Blesses the Old World through the New. Take heart! The promised hour draws near;I hear the downward beat of wings, And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear"Joy to the people! woe and fearTo new-world tyrants, old-world kings!" A LETTER. Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" atConcord, N. H. , to the Hon. M. N. , Jr. , at Washington, giving the resultof the election. The following verses were published in the BostonChronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, whichresulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the electionof John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their authorshipwas not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They furnish a specimenof the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in which theliberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and politicaloutlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected. 'T is over, Moses! All is lostI hear the bells a-ringing;Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea hostI hear the Free-Wills singing [4]We're routed, Moses, horse and foot, If there be truth in figures, With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit, And Hale, and all the "niggers. " Alack! alas! this month or moreWe've felt a sad foreboding;Our very dreams the burden boreOf central cliques exploding;Before our eyes a furnace shone, Where heads of dough were roasting, And one we took to be your ownThe traitor Hale was toasting! Our Belknap brother [5] heard with aweThe Congo minstrels playing;At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt [6] sawThe ghost of Storrs a-praying;And Calroll's woods were sad to see, With black-winged crows a-darting;And Black Snout looked on Ossipee, New-glossed with Day and Martin. We thought the "Old Man of the Notch"His face seemed changing wholly--His lips seemed thick; his nose seemed flat;His misty hair looked woolly;And Coos teamsters, shrieking, fledFrom the metamorphosed figure. "Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone HeadHimself is turning nigger!" The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauledSeemed turning on its track again, And like a great swamp-turtle crawledTo Canaan village back again, Shook off the mud and settled flatUpon its underpinning;A nigger on its ridge-pole sat, From ear to ear a-grinning. Gray H----d heard o' nights the soundOf rail-cars onward faring;Right over Democratic groundThe iron horse came tearing. A flag waved o'er that spectral train, As high as Pittsfield steeple;Its emblem was a broken chain;Its motto: "To the people!" I dreamed that Charley took his bed, With Hale for his physician;His daily dose an old "unreadAnd unreferred" petition. [8]There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat, As near as near could be, man;They leeched him with the "Democrat;"They blistered with the "Freeman. " Ah! grisly portents! What availYour terrors of forewarning?We wake to find the nightmare HaleAstride our breasts at morning!From Portsmouth lights to Indian streamOur foes their throats are trying;The very factory-spindles seemTo mock us while they're flying. The hills have bonfires; in our streetsFlags flout us in our faces;The newsboys, peddling off their sheets, Are hoarse with our disgraces. In vain we turn, for gibing witAnd shoutings follow after, As if old Kearsarge had splitHis granite sides with laughter. What boots it that we pelted outThe anti-slavery women, [9]And bravely strewed their hall aboutWith tattered lace and trimming?Was it for such a sad reverseOur mobs became peacemakers, And kept their tar and wooden horseFor Englishmen and Quakers? For this did shifty AthertonMake gag rules for the Great House?Wiped we for this our feet uponPetitions in our State House?Plied we for this our axe of doom, No stubborn traitor sparing, Who scoffed at our opinion loom, And took to homespun wearing? Ah, Moses! hard it is to scanThese crooked providences, Deducing from the wisest planThe saddest consequences!Strange that, in trampling as was meetThe nigger-men's petition, We sprang a mine beneath our feetWhich opened up perdition. How goodly, Moses, was the gameIn which we've long been actors, Supplying freedom with the nameAnd slavery with the practiceOur smooth words fed the people's mouth, Their ears our party rattle;We kept them headed to the South, As drovers do their cattle. But now our game of politicsThe world at large is learning;And men grown gray in all our tricksState's evidence are turning. Votes and preambles subtly spunThey cram with meanings louder, And load the Democratic gunWith abolition powder. The ides of June! Woe worth the dayWhen, turning all things over, The traitor Hale shall make his hayFrom Democratic clover!Who then shall take him in the law, Who punish crime so flagrant?Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw, A writ against that "vagrant"? Alas! no hope is left us here, And one can only pine forThe envied place of overseerOf slaves in Carolina!Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink, And see what pay he's giving!We've practised long enough, we think, To know the art of driving. And for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their whileTo try the rice plantations. Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper;The slaves, we know, are "better offThan laborers in New Hampshire!" LINESFROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND. A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of fire, O Freedom's God! be Thou to him! Speak through him words of power and fear, As through Thy prophet bards of old, And let a scornful people hearOnce more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled. For lying lips Thy blessing seek, And hands of blood are raised to Thee, And On Thy children, crushed and weak, The oppressor plants his kneeling knee. Let then, O God! Thy servant dareThy truth in all its power to tell, Unmask the priestly thieves, and tearThe Bible from the grasp of hell! From hollow rite and narrow spanOf law and sect by Thee released, Oh, teach him that the Christian manIs holier than the Jewish priest. Chase back the shadows, gray and old, Of the dead ages, from his way, And let his hopeful eyes beholdThe dawn of Thy millennial day; That day when fettered limb and mindShall know the truth which maketh free, And he alone who loves his kindShall, childlike, claim the love of Thee! DANIEL NEALL. Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that venerated philanthropist, WarnerMifflin, whom the Girondist statesman, Jean Pierre Brissot, pronounced"an angel of mercy, the best man he ever knew, " was one of the nobleband of Pennsylvania abolitionists, whose bravery was equalled only bytheir gentleness and tenderness. He presided at the great anti-slaverymeeting in Pennsylvania Hall, May 17, 1838, when the Hall was surroundedby a furious mob. I was standing near him while the glass of the windowsbroken by missiles showered over him, and a deputation from the riotersforced its way to the platform, and demanded that the meeting should beclosed at once. Dr. Neall drew up his tall form to its utmost height. "Iam here, " he said, "the president of this meeting, and I will be torn inpieces before I leave my place at your dictation. Go back to those whosent you. I shall do my duty. " Some years after, while visiting hisrelatives in his native State of Delaware, he was dragged from the houseof his friends by a mob of slave-holders and brutally maltreated. Hebore it like a martyr of the old times; and when released, told hispersecutors that he forgave them, for it was not they but Slavery whichhad done the wrong. If they should ever be in Philadelphia and neededhospitality or aid, let them call on him. I. FRIEND of the Slave, and yet the friend of all;Lover of peace, yet ever foremost whenThe need of battling Freedom called for menTo plant the banner on the outer wall;Gentle and kindly, ever at distressMelted to more than woman's tenderness, Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's postFronting the violence of a maddened host, Like some gray rock from which the waves aretossed!Knowing his deeds of love, men questioned notThe faith of one whose walk and word wereright;Who tranquilly in Life's great task-field wrought, And, side by side with evil, scarcely caughtA stain upon his pilgrim garb of whitePrompt to redress another's wrong, his ownLeaving to Time and Truth and Penitence alone. II. Such was our friend. Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest manHe blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic faceSupplied with cant the lack of Christian grace;Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful willWhat others talked of while their hands were still;And, while "Lord, Lord!" the pious tyrants cried, Who, in the poor, their Master crucified, His daily prayer, far better understoodIn acts than words, was simply doing good. So calm, so constant was his rectitude, That by his loss alone we know its worth, And feel how true a man has walked with us on earth. 6th, 6th month, 1846. SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT. "Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March, 1846. --This evening the femaleslaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to askmy negro servant, Said, what they were singing about. As many of themwere natives of his own country, he had no difficulty in translating theMandara or Bornou language. I had often asked the Moors to translatetheir songs for me, but got no satisfactory account from them. Said atfirst said, 'Oh, they sing of Rubee' (God). 'What do you mean?' Ireplied, impatiently. 'Oh, don't you know?' he continued, 'they askedGod to give them their Atka?' (certificate of freedom). I inquired, 'Isthat all?' Said: 'No; they say, "Where are we going? The world is large. O God! Where are we going? O God!"' I inquired, `What else?' Said: `Theyremember their country, Bornou, and say, "Bornou was a pleasant country, full of all good things; but this is a bad country, and we aremiserable!"' `Do they say anything else?' Said: 'No; they repeat thesewords over and over again, and add, "O God! give us our Atka, and let usreturn again to our dear home. "' "I am not surprised I got little satisfaction when I asked the Moorsabout the songs of their slaves. Who will say that the above words arenot a very appropriate song? What could have been more congeniallyadapted to their then woful condition? It is not to be wondered at thatthese poor bondwomen cheer up their hearts, in their long, lonely, andpainful wanderings over the desert, with words and sentiments likethese; but I have often observed that their fatigue and sufferings weretoo great for them to strike up this melancholy dirge, and many daystheir plaintive strains never broke over the silence of the desert. "--Richardson's Journal in Africa. WHERE are we going? where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?Lord of peoples, lord of lands, Look across these shining sands, Through the furnace of the noon, Through the white light of the moon. Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, Strange and large the world is growing!Speak and tell us where we are going, Where are we going, Rubee? Bornou land was rich and good, Wells of water, fields of food, Dourra fields, and bloom of bean, And the palm-tree cool and greenBornou land we see no longer, Here we thirst and here we hunger, Here the Moor-man smites in angerWhere are we going, Rubee? When we went from Bornou land, We were like the leaves and sand, We were many, we are few;Life has one, and death has twoWhitened bones our path are showing, Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowingHear us, tell us, where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee? Moons of marches from our eyesBornou land behind us lies;Stranger round us day by dayBends the desert circle gray;Wild the waves of sand are flowing, Hot the winds above them blowing, --Lord of all things! where are we going?Where are we going, Rubee? We are weak, but Thou art strong;Short our lives, but Thine is long;We are blind, but Thou hast eyes;We are fools, but Thou art wise!Thou, our morrow's pathway knowingThrough the strange world round us growing, Hear us, tell us where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?1847. TO DELAWARE. Written during the discussion in the Legislature of that State, in thewinter of 1846-47, of a bill for the abolition of slavery. THRICE welcome to thy sisters of the East, To the strong tillers of a rugged home, With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's foam;And to the young nymphs of the golden West, Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairie bloom, Trail in the sunset, --O redeemed and blest, To the warm welcome of thy sisters come!Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white bayShall give thee joy, and Jersey from her plains, And the great lakes, where echo, free alway, Moaned never shoreward with the clank of chains, Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing spray, And all their waves keep grateful holiday. And, smiling on thee through her mountain rains, Vermont shall bless thee; and the granite peaks, And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall wearTheir snow-crowns brighter in the cold, keen air;And Massachusetts, with her rugged cheeksO'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to thee, When, at thy bidding, the electric wireShall tremble northward with its words of fire;Glory and praise to God! another State is free!1847. YORKTOWN. Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regiment, in his description of thesiege of Yorktown, says: "The labor on the Virginia plantations isperformed altogether by a species of the human race cruelly wrested fromtheir native country, and doomed to perpetual bondage, while theirmasters are manfully contending for freedom and the natural rights ofman. Such is the inconsistency of human nature. " Eighteen hundred slaveswere found at Yorktown, after its surrender, and restored to theirmasters. Well was it said by Dr. Barnes, in his late work on Slavery:"No slave was any nearer his freedom after the surrender of Yorktownthan when Patrick Henry first taught the notes of liberty to echo amongthe hills and vales of Virginia. " FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hillWho curbs his steed at head of one?Hark! the low murmur: Washington!Who bends his keen, approving glance, Where down the gorgeous line of FranceShine knightly star and plume of snow?Thou too art victor, Rochambeau!The earth which bears this calm arrayShook with the war-charge yesterday, Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel;October's clear and noonday sunPaled in the breath-smoke of the gun, And down night's double blackness fell, Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. Now all is hushed: the gleaming linesStand moveless as the neighboring pines;While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, The conquered hosts of England goO'Hara's brow belies his dress, Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless:Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes! Nor thou alone; with one glad voiceLet all thy sister States rejoice;Let Freedom, in whatever climeShe waits with sleepless eye her time, Shouting from cave and mountain woodMake glad her desert solitude, While they who hunt her quail with fear;The New World's chain lies broken here! But who are they, who, cowering, waitWithin the shattered fortress gate?Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, Classed with the battle's common spoil, With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine, With Indian weed and planters' wine, With stolen beeves, and foraged corn, --Are they not men, Virginian born? Oh, veil your faces, young and brave!Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier graveSons of the Northland, ye who setStout hearts against the bayonet, And pressed with steady footfall nearThe moated battery's blazing tier, Turn your scarred faces from the sight, Let shame do homage to the right! Lo! fourscore years have passed; and whereThe Gallic bugles stirred the air, And, through breached batteries, side by side, To victory stormed the hosts allied, And brave foes grounded, pale with pain, The arms they might not lift again, As abject as in that old dayThe slave still toils his life away. Oh, fields still green and fresh in story, Old days of pride, old names of glory, Old marvels of the tongue and pen, Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men, Ye spared the wrong; and over allBehold the avenging shadow fall!Your world-wide honor stained with shame, --Your freedom's self a hollow name! Where's now the flag of that old war?Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star?Bear witness, Palo Alto's day, Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey, Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak;Symbol of terror and despair, Of chains and slaves, go seek it there! Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranksLaugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks!Brave sport to see the fledgling bornOf Freedom by its parent torn!Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell, Safe drear Siberia's frozen hellWith Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, What of the New World fears the Old?1847. RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. O MOTHER EARTH! upon thy lapThy weary ones receiving, And o'er them, silent as a dream, Thy grassy mantle weaving, Fold softly in thy long embraceThat heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneathThy shadows old and oaken. Shut out from him the bitter wordAnd serpent hiss of scorning;Nor let the storms of yesterdayDisturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulnessOf all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness. There, where with living ear and eyeHe heard Potomac's flowing, And, through his tall ancestral trees, Saw autumn's sunset glowing, He sleeps, still looking to the west, Beneath the dark wood shadow, As if he still would see the sunSink down on wave and meadow. Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himselfAll moods of mind contrasting, --The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting;The pathos which from rival eyesUnwilling tears could summon, The stinging taunt, the fiery burstOf hatred scarcely human! Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, From lips of life-long sadness;Clear picturings of majestic thoughtUpon a ground of madness;And over all Romance and SongA classic beauty throwing, And laurelled Clio at his sideHer storied pages showing. All parties feared him: each in turnBeheld its schemes disjointed, As right or left his fatal glanceAnd spectral finger pointed. Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it downWith trenchant wit unsparing, And, mocking, rent with ruthless handThe robe Pretence was wearing. Too honest or too proud to feignA love he never cherished, Beyond Virginia's border lineHis patriotism perished. While others hailed in distant skiesOur eagle's dusky pinion, He only saw the mountain birdStoop o'er his Old Dominion! Still through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning, His loving faith in Mother-landKnew never shade of turning;By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide, Whatever sky was o'er him, He heard her rivers' rushing sound, Her blue peaks rose before him. He held his slaves, yet made withalNo false and vain pretences, Nor paid a lying priest to seekFor Scriptural defences. His harshest words of proud rebuke, His bitterest taunt and scorning, Fell fire-like on the Northern browThat bent to him in fawning. He held his slaves; yet kept the whileHis reverence for the Human;In the dark vassals of his willHe saw but Man and Woman!No hunter of God's outraged poorHis Roanoke valley entered;No trader in the souls of menAcross his threshold ventured. And when the old and wearied manLay down for his last sleeping, And at his side, a slave no more, His brother-man stood weeping, His latest thought, his latest breath, To Freedom's duty giving, With failing tengue and trembling handThe dying blest the living. Oh, never bore his ancient StateA truer son or braverNone trampling with a calmer scornOn foreign hate or favor. He knew her faults, yet never stoopedHis proud and manly feelingTo poor excuses of the wrongOr meanness of concealing. But none beheld with clearer eyeThe plague-spot o'er her spreading, None heard more sure the steps of DoomAlong her future treading. For her as for himself he spake, When, his gaunt frame upbracing, He traced with dying hand "Remorse!"And perished in the tracing. As from the grave where Henry sleeps, From Vernon's weeping willow, And from the grassy pall which hidesThe Sage of Monticello, So from the leaf-strewn burial-stoneOf Randolph's lowly dwelling, Virginia! o'er thy land of slavesA warning voice is swelling! And hark! from thy deserted fieldsAre sadder warnings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sonsTheir household gods have broken. The curse is on thee, --wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheaves givingOh, more than all thy dead renownWere now one hero living1847. THE LOST STATESMAN. Written on hearing of the death of Silas Wright of New York. As they who, tossing midst the storm at night, While turning shoreward, where a beacon shone, Meet the walled blackness of the heaven alone, So, on the turbulent waves of party tossed, In gloom and tempest, men have seen thy lightQuenched in the darkness. At thy hour of noon, While life was pleasant to thy undimmed sight, And, day by day, within thy spirit grewA holier hope than young Ambition knew, As through thy rural quiet, not in vain, Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's cry of pain, Man of the millions, thou art lost too soonPortents at which the bravest stand aghast, --The birth-throes of a Future, strange and vast, Alarm the land; yet thou, so wise and strong, Suddenly summoned to the burial bed, Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long, Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead. Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host?Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?Who stay the march of slavery? He whose voiceHath called thee from thy task-field shall not lackYet bolder champions, to beat bravely backThe wrong which, through his poor ones, reaches Him:Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torchlights trim, And wave them high across the abysmal black, Till bound, dumb millions there shall see them and rejoice. 10th mo. , 1847. THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE. Suggested by a daguerreotype taken from a small French engraving of twonegro figures, sent to the writer by Oliver Johnson. BEAMS of noon, like burning lances, through thetree-tops flash and glisten, As she stands before her lover, with raised face tolook and listen. Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancientJewish songScarcely has the toil of task-fields done her gracefulbeauty wrong. He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal'sgarb and hue, Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his highernature true; Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freemanin his heart, As the gregree holds his Fetich from the whiteman's gaze apart. Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver'smorning hornCalls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields ofcane and corn. Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his backor limb;Scarce with look or word of censure, turns thedriver unto him. Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye ishard and stern;Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has neverdeigned to learn. And, at evening, when his comrades dance beforetheir master's door, Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands hesilent evermore. God be praised for every instinct which rebelsagainst a lotWhere the brute survives the human, and man'supright form is not! As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral foldon foldRound the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers inhis hold; Slow decays the forest monarch, closer girds thefell embrace, Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine is inits place; So a base and bestial nature round the vassal'smanhood twines, And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the ceibachoked with vines. God is Love, saith the Evangel; and our world ofwoe and sinIs made light and happy only when a Love isshining in. Ye whose lives are free as sunshine, finding, where-soe'er ye roam, Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness, making allthe world like home; In the veins of whose affections kindred blood isbut a part. , Of one kindly current throbbing from the universalheart; Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in Slaverynursed, Last flower of a lost Eden, blooming in that Soilaccursed? Love of Home, and Love of Woman!--dear to all, but doubly dearTo the heart whose pulses elsewhere measure onlyhate and fear. All around the desert circles, underneath a brazensky, Only one green spot remaining where the dew isnever dry! From the horror of that desert, from its atmosphereof hell, Turns the fainting spirit thither, as the diver seekshis bell. 'T is the fervid tropic noontime; faint and low thesea-waves beat;Hazy rise the inland mountains through the glimmerof the heat, -- Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms, arrowy sunbeams flash and glisten, Speaks her lover to the slave-girl, and she lifts herhead to listen:-- "We shall live as slaves no longer! Freedom'shour is close at hand!Rocks her bark upon the waters, rests the boatupon the strand! "I have seen the Haytien Captain; I have seenhis swarthy crew, Haters of the pallid faces, to their race and colortrue. "They have sworn to wait our coming till the nighthas passed its noon, And the gray and darkening waters roll above thesunken moon!" Oh, the blessed hope of freedom! how with joyand glad surprise, For an instant throbs her bosom, for an instantbeam her eyes! But she looks across the valley, where her mother'shut is seen, Through the snowy bloom of coffee, and the lemon-leaves so green. And she answers, sad and earnest: "It were wrongfor thee to stay;God hath heard thy prayer for freedom, and hisfinger points the way. "Well I know with what endurance, for the sakeof me and mine, Thou hast borne too long a burden never meantfor souls like thine. "Go; and at the hour of midnight, when our lastfarewell is o'er, Kneeling on our place of parting, I will bless theefrom the shore. "But for me, my mother, lying on her sick-bedall the day, Lifts her weary head to watch me, coming throughthe twilight gray. "Should I leave her sick and helpless, even freedom, shared with thee, Would be sadder far than bondage, lonely toil, andstripes to me. "For my heart would die within me, and my brainwould soon be wild;I should hear my mother calling through the twilightfor her child!" Blazing upward from the ocean, shines the sun ofmorning-time, Through the coffee-trees in blossom, and greenhedges of the lime. Side by side, amidst the slave-gang, toil the loverand the maid;Wherefore looks he o'er the waters, leaning forwardon his spade? Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he: 't is the Haytien'ssail he sees, Like a white cloud of the mountains, driven seawardby the breeze. But his arm a light hand presses, and he hears alow voice callHate of Slavery, hope of Freedom, Love is mightierthan all. 1848. THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS. The rights and liberties affirmed by Magna Charta were deemed of suchimportance, in the thirteenth century, that the Bishops, twice a year, with tapers burning, and in their pontifical robes, pronounced, in thepresence of the king and the representatives of the estates of England, the greater excommunication against the infringer of that instrument. The imposing ceremony took place in the great Hall of Westminster. Acopy of the curse, as pronounced in 1253, declares that, "by theauthority of Almighty God, and the blessed Apostles and Martyrs, and allthe saints in heaven, all those who violate the English liberties, andsecretly or openly, by deed, word, or counsel, do make statutes, orobserve then being made, against said liberties, are accursed andsequestered from the company of heaven and the sacraments of the HolyChurch. " William Penn, in his admirable political pamphlet, England'sPresent Interest Considered, alluding to the curse of the Charter-breakers, says: "I am no Roman Catholic, and little value theirother curses; yet I declare I would not for the world incur thiscurse, as every man deservedly doth, who offers violence to thefundamental freedom thereby repeated and confirmed. " IN Westminster's royal halls, Robed in their pontificals, England's ancient prelates stoodFor the people's right and good. Closed around the waiting crowd, Dark and still, like winter's cloud;King and council, lord and knight, Squire and yeoman, stood in sight;Stood to hear the priest rehearse, In God's name, the Church's curse, By the tapers round them lit, Slowly, sternly uttering it. "Right of voice in framing laws, Right of peers to try each cause;Peasant homestead, mean and small, Sacred as the monarch's hall, -- "Whoso lays his hand on these, England's ancient liberties;Whoso breaks, by word or deed, England's vow at Runnymede; "Be he Prince or belted knight, Whatsoe'er his rank or might, If the highest, then the worst, Let him live and die accursed. "Thou, who to Thy Church hast givenKeys alike, of hell and heaven, Make our word and witness sure, Let the curse we speak endure!" Silent, while that curse was said, Every bare and listening headBowed in reverent awe, and thenAll the people said, Amen! Seven times the bells have tolled, For the centuries gray and old, Since that stoled and mitred bandCursed the tyrants of their land. Since the priesthood, like a tower, Stood between the poor and power;And the wronged and trodden downBlessed the abbot's shaven crown. Gone, thank God, their wizard spell, Lost, their keys of heaven and hell;Yet I sigh for men as boldAs those bearded priests of old. Now, too oft the priesthood waitAt the threshold of the state;Waiting for the beck and nodOf its power as law and God. Fraud exults, while solemn wordsSanctify his stolen hoards;Slavery laughs, while ghostly lipsBless his manacles and whips. Not on them the poor rely, Not to them looks liberty, Who with fawning falsehood cowerTo the wrong, when clothed with power. Oh, to see them meanly cling, Round the master, round the king, Sported with, and sold and bought, --Pitifuller sight is not! Tell me not that this must beGod's true priest is always free;Free, the needed truth to speak, Right the wronged, and raise the weak. Not to fawn on wealth and state, Leaving Lazarus at the gate;Not to peddle creeds like wares;Not to mutter hireling prayers; Nor to paint the new life's blissOn the sable ground of this;Golden streets for idle knave, Sabbath rest for weary slave! Not for words and works like these, Priest of God, thy mission is;But to make earth's desert glad, In its Eden greenness clad; And to level manhood bringLord and peasant, serf and king;And the Christ of God to findIn the humblest of thy kind! Thine to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away;Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven's warm sunshine in; Watching on the hills of Faith;Listening what the spirit saith, Of the dim-seen light afar, Growing like a nearing star. God's interpreter art thou, To the waiting ones below;'Twixt them and its light midwayHeralding the better day; Catching gleams of temple spires, Hearing notes of angel choirs, Where, as yet unseen of them, Comes the New Jerusalem! Like the seer of Patmos gazing, On the glory downward blazing;Till upon Earth's grateful sodRests the City of our God!1848. PAEAN. This poem indicates the exultation of the anti-slavery party in view ofthe revolt of the friends of Martin Van Buren in New York, from theDemocratic Presidential nomination in 1848. Now, joy and thanks forevermore!The dreary night has wellnigh passed, The slumbers of the North are o'er, The Giant stands erect at last! More than we hoped in that dark timeWhen, faint with watching, few and worn, We saw no welcome day-star climbThe cold gray pathway of the morn! O weary hours! O night of years!What storms our darkling pathway swept, Where, beating back our thronging fears, By Faith alone our march we kept. How jeered the scoffing crowd behind, How mocked before the tyrant train, As, one by one, the true and kindFell fainting in our path of pain! They died, their brave hearts breaking slow, But, self-forgetful to the last, In words of cheer and bugle blowTheir breath upon the darkness passed. A mighty host, on either hand, Stood waiting for the dawn of dayTo crush like reeds our feeble band;The morn has come, and where are they? Troop after troop their line forsakes;With peace-white banners waving free, And from our own the glad shout breaks, Of Freedom and Fraternity! Like mist before the growing light, The hostile cohorts melt away;Our frowning foemen of the nightAre brothers at the dawn of day. As unto these repentant onesWe open wide our toil-worn ranks, Along our line a murmur runsOf song, and praise, and grateful thanks. Sound for the onset! Blast on blast!Till Slavery's minions cower and quail;One charge of fire shall drive them fastLike chaff before our Northern gale! O prisoners in your house of pain, Dumb, toiling millions, bound and sold, Look! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain, The Lord's delivering hand behold! Above the tyrant's pride of power, His iron gates and guarded wall, The bolts which shattered Shinar's towerHang, smoking, for a fiercer fall. Awake! awake! my Fatherland!It is thy Northern light that shines;This stirring march of Freedom's bandThe storm-song of thy mountain pines. Wake, dwellers where the day expires!And hear, in winds that sweep your lakesAnd fan your prairies' roaring fires, The signal-call that Freedom makes!1848. THE CRISIS. Written on learning the terms of the treaty with Mexico. ACROSS the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert'sdrouth and sand, The circles of our empire touch the western ocean'sstrand;From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild andfree, Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;And from the mountains of the east, to SantaRosa's shore, The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more. O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple childrenweep;Close watch about their holy fire let maids ofPecos keep;Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines, And Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her cornand vines;For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyesof gain, Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broadSalada's plain. Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound thewinds bring downOf footsteps on the crisping snow, from coldNevada's crown!Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein oftravel slack, And, bending o'er his saddle, leaves the sunrise athis back;By many a lonely river, and gorge of fir andpine, On many a wintry hill-top, his nightly camp-firesshine. O countrymen and brothers! that land of lake andplain, Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat withgrain;Of mountains white with winter, looking downward, cold, serene, On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lappedin softest green;Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o'ermany a sunny vale, Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison's dustytrail! Great spaces yet untravelled, great lakes whosemystic shoresThe Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars;Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steedsthat none have tamed, Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds theSaxon never named;Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature'schemic powersWork out the Great Designer's will; all these yesay are ours! Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burdenlies;God's balance, watched by angels, is hung acrossthe skies. Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poisedand trembling scale?Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail?Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starrysplendor waves, Forego through us its freedom, and bear the treadof slaves? The day is breaking in the East of which theprophets told, And brightens up the sky of Time the ChristianAge of Gold;Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade toclerkly pen, Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfsstand up as men; The isles rejoice together, in a day are nationsborn, And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul'sGolden Horn! Is this, O countrymen of mine! a day for us to sowThe soil of new-gained empire with slavery's seedsof woe?To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World'scast-off crime, Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, fromthe tired lap of Time?To run anew the evil race the old lost nations ran, And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrongof man? Great Heaven! Is this our mission? End in thisthe prayers and tears, The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger, better years?Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours inshadow turn, A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outerdarkness borne?Where the far nations looked for light, a black-ness in the air?Where for words of hope they listened, the longwail of despair? The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us itstands, With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx inEgypt's sands!This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate wespin;This day for all hereafter choose we holiness orsin;Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudycrown, We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursingdown! By all for which the martyrs bore their agony andshame;By all the warning words of truth with which theprophets came;By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopeswhich castTheir faint and trembling beams across the black-ness of the Past;And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth'sfreedom died, O my people! O my brothers! let us choose therighteous side. So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on hisway;To wed Penobseot's waters to San Francisco's bay;To make the rugged places smooth, and sow thevales with grain;And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible in histrainThe mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shallanswer sea, And mountain unto mountain call, Praise God, forwe are free1845. LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER. A pleasant print to peddle outIn lands of rice and cotton;The model of that face in doughWould make the artist's fortune. For Fame to thee has come unsought, While others vainly woo her, In proof how mean a thing can makeA great man of its doer. To whom shall men thyself compare, Since common models fail 'em, Save classic goose of ancient Rome, Or sacred ass of Balaam?The gabble of that wakeful gooseSaved Rome from sack of Brennus;The braying of the prophet's assBetrayed the angel's menace! So when Guy Fawkes, in petticoats, And azure-tinted hose oil, Was twisting from thy love-lorn sheetsThe slow-match of explosion--An earthquake blast that would have tossedThe Union as a feather, Thy instinct saved a perilled landAnd perilled purse together. Just think of Carolina's sageSent whirling like a Dervis, Of Quattlebum in middle airPerforming strange drill-service!Doomed like Assyria's lord of old, Who fell before the Jewess, Or sad Abimelech, to sigh, "Alas! a woman slew us!" Thou saw'st beneath a fair disguiseThe danger darkly lurking, And maiden bodice dreaded moreThan warrior's steel-wrought jerkin. How keen to scent the hidden plot!How prompt wert thou to balk it, With patriot zeal and pedler thrift, For country and for pocket! Thy likeness here is doubtless well, But higher honor's due it;On auction-block and negro-jailAdmiring eyes should view it. Or, hung aloft, it well might graceThe nation's senate-chamber--A greedy Northern bottle-flyPreserved in Slavery's amber!1850.