Anti Slavery Poems II, vol 3, part 2 | Page 5

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 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 masters of the slave-land shall tremble at
that sign,
When it
points its finger Southward along the
Puritan line
Can the craft of
State avail them? Can a Christless
church withstand,
In the van of
Freedom's onset, the coming of that
band?
1846.
THE FREED ISLANDS.
Written for the anniversary celebration of
the first of August, at Milton, 7846.
A FEW brief years have passed away
Since Britain drove her million
slaves
Beneath the tropic's fiery ray
God willed their freedom; and
to-day
Life 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
liberty
Which thrilled along the bondman's veins.
Though long delayed, and far, and slow,
The Briton's triumph shall
be ours
Wears slavery here a prouder brow
Than that which twelve
short years ago
Scowled darkly from her island bowers?

Mighty alike for good or ill
With mother-land, we fully share
The
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 blew
O'er her green islands,
echoes through
Each valley of our forest land.
Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn
The 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 show
What deeds in Freedom's name we
do;
Yet know that every taunt ye throw
Across the waters, goads
our slow
Progression 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 door
Swing wide shall be their triumph time.
On then, my brothers! every blow
Ye deal is felt the wide earth
through;
Whatever here uplifts the low
Or 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 fear
To new-world tyrants, old-world kings!"
A LETTER.
Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" at
Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result
of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston
Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire,
which resulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the
election of John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their

authorship was not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They
furnish a specimen of the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in
which the
liberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and
political outlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected.
'T is over, Moses! All is lost
I hear the bells a-ringing;
Of Pharaoh
and his Red Sea host
I 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 more
We've felt a sad foreboding;
Our
very dreams the burden bore
Of central cliques exploding;
Before
our eyes a furnace shone,
Where heads of dough were roasting,
And
one we took to be your own
The traitor Hale was toasting!
Our Belknap brother [5] heard with awe
The Congo minstrels playing;

At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt [6] saw
The 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, fled
From the
metamorphosed figure.
"Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone Head

Himself is turning nigger!"
The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauled
Seemed turning on its track
again,
And like a great swamp-turtle crawled
To Canaan village
back again,
Shook off the mud and settled flat
Upon its
underpinning;
A nigger