As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back from Syrian wars The scars of Arab lances, and of Paynim scimetars, The pallor of the prison and the shackle's crimson span, So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man! He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, Thou for his living presence in the bound and bleeding slave; He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God! For, while the jurist sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung, From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung, And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each Goddeserted shrine, Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt, And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt; Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadows dim, And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him! In thy lone and long night watches, sky above and wave below, Thou did'st learn a higher wisdom than the pab bling school-men know; God's stars and silence taught thee, as his angels only can, That the one, sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven, is Man! That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need; But woe to him who crushes the SOUL with chain and rod, And herds with lower natures the awful form of God! Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave! 1 Its branded palm shall prophesy, "SALVATION TO THE SLAVE!" Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel. Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air— Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God look there! Take it henceforth for your standard-like the Bruce's heart of yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before! And the tyrants of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line: Woe to the State-gorged leeches, and the Church's locust band, When they look from slavery's ramparts on the coming of that hand! TEXAS. VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND. Up the hill-side, down the glen, Like a lion growling low- It is coming-it is nigh! Clang the bells in all your spires; From Wachuset, lone and bleak, O! for God and duty stand, Whoso shrinks or falters now, Freedom's soil hath only place Perish party-perish clan; Like that angel's voice sublime, With one heart and with one mouth, "What though Issachar be strong! Patience with her cup o'errun, Make our Union-bond a chain, Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Give us bright though broken rays, Take your land of sun and bloom; For her plough, and forge, and loom; Take your slavery-blackened vales; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails. Boldly, or with treacherous art, Work the ruin, if ye will; With your bondman's right arm bare, Onward with your fell design; Deeply, when the wide abyss By the hearth, and in the bed, And the curse of unpaid toil, Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Plenty in our valleys flow ;— And when your skies, clouds vengeance 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, |