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

slave territory by the annexation of Texas, even if it should involve a war with England, was unwilling to promote the acquisition of Oregon, which would enlarge the Northern domain of freedom, and pleaded as an excuse the peril of foreign complications which he had defied when the interests of slavery were involved.
Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear?Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear,?Actieon-like, the bay of thine own hounds,?Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds??Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand,?With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack,?To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land,?Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back,?These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track??Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue,?Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung,
O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan,?Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man??How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting,?And pointing to the lurid heaven afar,?Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting,?Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star!?The Fates are just; they give us but our own;?Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.?There is an Eastern story, not unknown,?Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill?Called demons up his water-jars to fill;?Deftly and silently, they did his will,?But, when the task was done, kept pouring still.?In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought,?Faster and faster were the buckets brought,?Higher and higher rose the flood around,?Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee,?For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes?Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes?The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be,?That the roused spirits of Democracy?May leave to freer States the same wide door?Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in,?From out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin,?Of the stormed-city and the ghastly plain,?Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain,?The myriad-handed pioneer may pour,?And the wild West with the roused North combine?And heave the engineer of evil with his mine.?1846.
AT WASHINGTON.?Suggested by a visit to the city of Washington, in the 12th month of 1845.
WITH a cold and wintry noon-light?On its roofs and steeples shed,?Shadows weaving with the sunlight?From the gray sky overhead,?Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built?town outspread.
Through this broad street, restless ever,?Ebbs and flows a human tide,?Wave on wave a living river;?Wealth and fashion side by side;?Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick?current glide.
Underneath yon dome, whose coping?Springs above them, vast and tall,?Grave men in the dust are groping?For the largess, base and small,?Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs?which from its table fall.
Base of heart! They vilely barter?Honor's wealth for party's place;?Step by step on Freedom's charter?Leaving footprints of disgrace;?For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great?hope of their race.
Yet, where festal lamps are throwing?Glory round the dancer's hair,?Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing?Backward on the sunset air;?And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure?sweet and rare.
There to-night shall woman's glances,?Star-like, welcome give to them;?Fawning fools with shy advances?Seek to touch their garments' hem,?With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which?God and Truth condemn.
From this glittering lie my vision?Takes a broader, sadder range,?Full before me have arisen?Other pictures dark and strange;?From the parlor to the prison must the scene and?witness change.
Hark! the heavy gate is swinging?On its hinges, harsh and slow;?One pale prison lamp is flinging?On a fearful group below?Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does?not show.
Pitying God! Is that a woman?On whose wrist the shackles clash??Is that shriek she utters human,?Underneath the stinging lash??Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad?procession flash?
Still the dance goes gayly onward?What is it to Wealth and Pride?That without the stars are looking?On a scene which earth should hide??That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking?on Potomac's tide!
Vainly to that mean Ambition?Which, upon a rival's fall,?Winds above its old condition,?With a reptile's slimy crawl,?Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave?in anguish call.
Vainly to the child of Fashion,?Giving to ideal woe?Graceful luxury of compassion,?Shall the stricken mourner go;?Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the?hollow show!
Nay, my words are all too sweeping:?In this crowded human mart,?Feeling is not dead, but sleeping;?Man's strong will and woman's heart,?In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear?their generous part.
And from yonder sunny valleys,?Southward in the distance lost,?Freedom yet shall summon allies?Worthier than the North can boast,?With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at?severer cost.
Now, the soul alone is willing?Faint the heart and weak the knee;?And as yet no lip is thrilling?With the mighty words, "Be Free!"?Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his?advent is to be!
Meanwhile, turning from the revel?To the prison-cell my sight,?For intenser hate of evil,?For a keener sense of right,?Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee,