Anti Slavery Poems II, vol 3, part 2 | Page 4

City of the?Slaves, to-night!
"To thy duty now and ever!?Dream no more of rest or stay?Give to Freedom's great endeavor?All thou art and hast to-day:"?Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or?seems to say.
Ye with heart and vision gifted?To discern and love the right,
Whose worn faces have been lifted?To the slowly-growing light,?Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly?back the murk of night
Ye who through long years of trial?Still have held your purpose fast,?While a lengthening shade the dial?from the westering sunshine cast,?And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of?the last!
O my brothers! O my sisters?Would to God that ye were near,?Gazing with me down the vistas?Of a sorrow strange and drear;?Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice?I seem to hear!
With the storm above us driving,?With the false earth mined below,?Who shall marvel if thus striving?We have counted friend as foe;?Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for?blow.
Well it may be that our natures?Have grown sterner and more hard,?And the freshness of their features?Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred,?And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and?rudely jarred.
Be it so. It should not swerve us?From a purpose true and brave;?Dearer Freedom's rugged service?Than the pastime of the slave;?Better is the storm above it than the quiet of?the grave.
Let us then, uniting, bury?All our idle feuds in dust,?And to future conflicts carry?Mutual faith and common trust;?Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is?most just.
From the eternal shadow rounding?All our sun and starlight here,?Voices of our lost ones sounding?Bid us be of heart and cheer,?Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on?the inward ear.
Know we not our dead are looking?Downward with a sad surprise,?All our strife of words rebuking?With their mild and loving eyes??Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloud?their blessed skies?
Let us draw their mantles o'er us?Which have fallen in our way;?Let us do the work before us,?Cheerly, bravely, while we may,?Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is?not day!
THE BRANDED HAND.
Captain Jonathan Walker, of Harwich, Mass., was solicited by several fugitive slaves at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them in his vessel to the British West Indies. Although well aware of the great hazard of the enterprise he attempted to comply with the request, but was seized at sea by an American vessel, consigned to the authorities at Key West, and thence sent back to Pensacola, where, after a long and rigorous confinement in prison, he was tried and sentenced to be branded on his right hand with the letters "S.S." (slave-stealer) and amerced in a heavy fine.
WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy?thoughtful brow and gray,?And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day;?With that front of calm endurance, on whose?steady nerve in vain?Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery?shafts of pain.
Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal?cravens aim?To make God's truth thy falsehood, His holiest?work thy shame??When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the?iron was withdrawn,?How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to?scorn!
They change to wrong the duty which God hath?written out?On the great heart of humanity, too legible for?doubt!?They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from?footsole up to crown,?Give to shame what God hath given unto honor?and renown!
Why, that brand is highest honor! than its traces?never yet?Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon?set;?And thy unborn generations, as they tread our?rocky strand,?Shall tell with pride the story of their father's?branded hand!
As the Templar home was welcome, bearing backfrom?Syrian wars?The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars,?The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span,?So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of?God and man.
He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave,?Thou for His living presence in the bound and?bleeding slave;?He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod,?Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God.
For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip?o'er him swung,?From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of?slavery wrung,?And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each 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 didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling?schoolmen know;?God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angels?only can,?That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of?heaven is Man!
That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law?and creed,?In the depth of God's great goodness may find?mercy in his need;?But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain?and rod,?And herds with lower natures the awful form of God!
Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman?of the wave!?Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation