Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Take heart! The promised hour draws near—
I hear the downward beat of wings,
And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear:
Joy to the people!-woe and fear

66

To new world tyrants, old world kings!”

THE FAREWELL

A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

GONE, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,

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

Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.

Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Oh, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and racked with pain,
To their cheerless homes again—

There no brother's voice shall greet them-
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters-
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of playFrom the cool spring where they drank― Rock, and hill, and rivulet bankFrom the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there

Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

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

Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth-
By the bruised reed He spareth—
Oh, may He, to whom alone

All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than a mother's love.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

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'

THE WORLD'S CONVENTION OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION, HELD IN LONDON IN 1840 YES, let them gather!-Summon forth The pledged philanthropy of Earth, From every land, whose hills have heard The bugle blast of Freedom waking; Or shrieking of her symbol-bird From out his cloudy eyrie breaking; Where Justice hath one worshipper, Or truth one altar built to her; Where'er a human eye is weeping O'er wrongs

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

Yes, let them come! from each green vale
Where England's old baronial halls
Still bear upon their storied walls
The grim crusader's rusted mail,
Battered by Paynim spear and brand
On Malta's rock or Syria's sand!
And mouldering pennon-staves once set
Within the soil of Palestine,

By Jordan and Genessaret;

Or, borne with England's battle line,
O'er Acre's shattered turrets stooping,
Or, 'midst the camp their banners drooping,

With dews from hallowed Hermon wet,
A holier summons now is given

Than that gray hermit's voice of old,
Which unto all the winds of heaven
The banners of the Cross unrolled!
Not for the long deserted shrine,——
Not for the dull unconscious sod,
Which tells not by one lingering sign
That there the hope of Israel trod :—
But for that TRUTH, for which alone
In pilgrim eyes are sanctified

The garden moss, the mountain stone,
Whereon his holy sandals pressed-
The fountain which his lip hath blessed—
Whate'er hath touched his garment's hem
At Bethany or Bethlehem,

Or Jordan's river side.

For FREEDOM, in the name of Him

Who came to raise Earth's drooping poor, To break the chain from every limbThe bolt from every prison door! For these, o'er all the earth hath passed An ever-deepening trumpet blast,

As if an angel's breath had lent

Its vigor to the instrument.

And Wales, from Snowden's mountain wall,
Shall startle at that thrilling call,
As if she heard her bards again:
And Erin's "harp on Tara's wall"
Give out its ancient strain,
Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withal—
The melody which Erin loves,
When o'er that harp, mid bursts of gladness
And slogan cries and lyke-wake sadness,
The hand of her O'Connell moves!
Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill,
And mountain hold, and heathery hill,
Shall catch and echo back the note,

« ForrigeFortsæt »