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

without
distinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and the
aggressions of South Carolina, and in favor of decisive action against
slavery.
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 die
Shut 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, looked
On your fathers' way;

These your instant zeal demand,
Shaking with their earthquake-call

Every rood of Pilgrim land,
Ho, to Faneuil Hall!
From your capes and sandy bars,
From your mountain-ridges cold,

Through whose pines the westering stars
Stoop their crowns of gold;

Come, and with your footsteps wake
Echoes from that holy wall;


Once again, for Freedom's sake,
Rock your fathers' hall!
Up, and tread beneath your feet
Every cord by party spun:
Let your
hearts together beat
As 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 speaks
Ring from thence to Southern
plains,
Sharply as the blow which breaks
Prison-bolts and chains!

Speak as well becomes the free
Dreaded more than steel or ball,

Shall your calmest utterance be,
Heard from Faneuil Hall!
Have they wronged us? Let us then
Render 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 blazes
No 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 approving
From Mammon's crowded mart?
Still, let the land be shaken
By 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 sequel

God holds the right side up!
But when, with thine uniting,
Come voices long and loud,
And
far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-words on the cloud;
When from
Penobscot's fountains

A deep response is heard,
And across the
Western mountains
Rolls 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 Freedom
Speed them onward far and fast
Over hill and
valley speed them,
Like the sibyl's on the blast!
Lo! the Empire State is shaking
The shackles from her hand;
With
the rugged North is waking
The level sunset land!
On they come,
the free battalions
East and West and North they come,
And the
heart-beat of the millions
Is the beat of Freedom's drum.
"To the tyrant's plot no favor
No heed to place-fed knaves!
Bar and
bolt the door forever
Against the land of slaves!"
Hear it, mother
Earth, and hear it,
The heavens above us spread!
The land is
roused,--its spirit
Was sleeping, but not dead!
1844.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
GOD bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks
Once more the
voice of Stark and Langdon speaks.
The long-bound vassal of the
exulting South
For 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
changes
The 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 part
All is not lost. The angel
of God's blessing
Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight;
Still
to her banner, day by day, are pressing,
Unlooked-for allies, striking
for the right
Courage, 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.
Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in
1846.
LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State's
rusted shield,

Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's
tattered field.

Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles
round the board,

Answering England's royal missive with a firm,
"Thus saith the
Lord!"
Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle
in array!

What the fathers did of old time we their sons
must do to-day.
Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry
pedler cries;
Shall
the good State sink her honor that your
gambling stocks may rise?

Would ye barter man for cotton? That your
gains may sum up higher,

Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children
through the fire?

Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right
a dream?

Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood
kick the
beam?
O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in
Boston town
Smote
the Province House with terror, struck the
crest of Andros down!

For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's
streets to cry,
"Up for
God and Massachusetts! Set your feet
on Mammon's lie!
Perish
banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's
latest pound,
But in
Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the
heart o' the Bay State
sound!"
Where's the man for