Anti Slavery Poems II, vol 3, part 2 | Page 6

on its ridge-pole sat,
From ear to ear
a-grinning.
Gray H----d heard o' nights the sound
Of rail-cars onward faring;

Right over Democratic ground

The iron horse came tearing.
A flag

waved o'er that spectral train,
As high as Pittsfield steeple;
Its
emblem was a broken chain;
Its motto: "To the people!"
I dreamed that Charley took his bed,
With Hale for his physician;

His daily dose an old "unread
And unreferred" petition. [8]
There
Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat,
As near as near could be, man;
They
leeched him with the "Democrat;"
They blistered with the "Freeman."
Ah! grisly portents! What avail
Your terrors of forewarning?
We
wake to find the nightmare Hale
Astride our breasts at morning!

From Portsmouth lights to Indian stream
Our foes their throats are
trying;
The very factory-spindles seem
To mock us while they're
flying.
The hills have bonfires; in our streets
Flags flout us in our faces;

The newsboys, peddling off their sheets,
Are hoarse with our
disgraces.
In vain we turn, for gibing wit
And shoutings follow
after,
As if old Kearsarge had split
His granite sides with laughter.
What boots it that we pelted out
The anti-slavery women, [9]
And
bravely strewed their hall about
With tattered lace and trimming?

Was it for such a sad reverse
Our mobs became peacemakers,
And
kept their tar and wooden horse
For Englishmen and Quakers?
For this did shifty Atherton
Make gag rules for the Great House?

Wiped we for this our feet upon
Petitions in our State House?
Plied
we for this our axe of doom,
No stubborn traitor sparing,
Who
scoffed at our opinion loom,
And took to homespun wearing?
Ah, Moses! hard it is to scan
These crooked providences,
Deducing
from the wisest plan

The saddest consequences!
Strange that, in
trampling as was meet
The nigger-men's petition,
We sprang a mine
beneath our feet
Which opened up perdition.

How goodly, Moses, was the game
In which we've long been actors,

Supplying freedom with the name
And slavery with the practice

Our smooth words fed the people's mouth,
Their ears our party rattle;

We kept them headed to the South,
As drovers do their cattle.
But now our game of politics
The world at large is learning;
And
men grown gray in all our tricks
State's evidence are turning.
Votes
and preambles subtly spun
They cram with meanings louder,
And
load the Democratic gun
With abolition powder.
The ides of June! Woe worth the day
When, turning all things over,

The traitor Hale shall make his hay
From Democratic clover!

Who then shall take him in the law,
Who punish crime so flagrant?

Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw,
A writ against that
"vagrant"?
Alas! no hope is left us here,
And one can only pine for
The envied
place of overseer
Of slaves in Carolina!
Pray, Moses, give Calhoun
the wink,
And see what pay he's giving!
We've practised long
enough, we think,
To know the art of driving.
And for the faithful rank and file,
Who know their proper stations,

Perhaps it may be worth their while
To try the rice plantations.
Let
Hale exult, let Wilson scoff,
To see us southward scamper;
The
slaves, we know, are "better off
Than laborers in New Hampshire!"
LINES
FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL
FRIEND.
A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire,
A faith which doubt can
never dim,
A heart of love, a lip of fire,
O Freedom's God! be Thou
to him!
Speak through him words of power and fear,
As through Thy prophet
bards of old,
And let a scornful people hear
Once more Thy

Sinai-thunders rolled.
For lying lips Thy blessing seek,
And hands of blood are raised to
Thee,
And On Thy children, crushed and weak,
The oppressor
plants his kneeling knee.
Let then, O God! Thy servant dare
Thy truth in all its power to tell,

Unmask the priestly thieves, and tear
The Bible from the grasp of
hell!
From hollow rite and narrow span
Of law and sect by Thee released,

Oh, teach him that the Christian man
Is holier than the Jewish
priest.
Chase back the shadows, gray and old,
Of the dead ages, from his
way,
And let his hopeful eyes behold
The dawn of Thy millennial
day;
That day when fettered limb and mind
Shall know the truth which
maketh free,
And he alone who loves his kind
Shall, childlike,
claim the love of Thee!
DANIEL NEALL.
Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that venerated
philanthropist, Warner Mifflin, whom the Girondist statesman, Jean
Pierre Brissot, pronounced "an angel of mercy, the best man he ever
knew," was one of the noble band of Pennsylvania abolitionists, whose
bravery was equalled only by their gentleness and tenderness. He
presided at the great anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall, May 17,
1838, when the Hall was surrounded by a furious mob. I was standing
near him while the glass of the windows broken by missiles showered
over him, and a deputation from the rioters forced its way to the
platform, and demanded that the meeting should be closed at once. Dr.
Neall drew up his tall form to its utmost height. "I am here," he said,
"the president of this meeting, and I will be torn in pieces before I leave
my place at your dictation. Go back to those who sent you. I shall do
my duty." Some years after, while visiting his