Anti Slavery Poems III, vol 3, part 3

Project Gutenberg EBook, Anti-Slavery Poems III. by Whittier Volume III., The Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery, Labor and Reform #22 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Title: Anti-Slavery Poems III.
From Volume III., The Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9577]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS III. ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS
SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM
BY
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
CONTENTS:
DERNE?A SABBATH SCENE?IN THE EVIL DAY?MOLOCH IN STATE STREET?OFFICIAL PIETY?THE RENDITION?ARISEN AT LAST?THE HASCHISH?FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE?THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS?LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST
EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A?DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN?BURIAL OF BARBER?TO PENNSYLVANIA?LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.?THE PASS OF THE SIERRA?A SONG FOR THE TIME?WHAT OF THE DAY??A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS?THE PANORAMA?ON A PRAYER-BOOK?THE SUMMONS?TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD
DERNE.
The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine Americans, forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats of hardihood and daring which have in all ages attracted the admiration of the multitude. The higher and holier heroism of Christian self-denial and sacrifice, in the humble walks of private duty, is seldom so well appreciated.
NIGHT on the city of the Moor!?On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore,?On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock?The narrow harbor-gates unlock,?On corsair's galley, carack tall,?And plundered Christian caraval!?The sounds of Moslem life are still;?No mule-bell tinkles down the hill;?Stretched in the broad court of the khan,?The dusty Bornou caravan?Lies heaped in slumber, beast and man;?The Sheik is dreaming in his tent,?His noisy Arab tongue o'erspent;?The kiosk's glimmering lights are gone,?The merchant with his wares withdrawn;?Rough pillowed on some pirate breast,?The dancing-girl has sunk to rest;?And, save where measured footsteps fall?Along the Bashaw's guarded wall,?Or where, like some bad dream, the Jew?Creeps stealthily his quarter through,?Or counts with fear his golden heaps,?The City of the Corsair sleeps.
But where yon prison long and low?Stands black against the pale star-glow,?Chafed by the ceaseless wash of waves,?There watch and pine the Christian slaves;?Rough-bearded men, whose far-off wives?Wear out with grief their lonely lives;?And youth, still flashing from his eyes?The clear blue of New England skies,?A treasured lock of whose soft hair?Now wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer;?Or, worn upon some maiden breast,?Stirs with the loving heart's unrest.
A bitter cup each life must drain,?The groaning earth is cursed with pain,?And, like the scroll the angel bore?The shuddering Hebrew seer before,?O'erwrit alike, without, within,?With all the woes which follow sin;?But, bitterest of the ills beneath?Whose load man totters down to death,?Is that which plucks the regal crown?Of Freedom from his forehead down,?And snatches from his powerless hand?The sceptred sign of self-command,?Effacing with the chain and rod?The image and the seal of God;?Till from his nature, day by day,?The manly virtues fall away,?And leave him naked, blind and mute,?The godlike merging in the brute!
Why mourn the quiet ones who die?Beneath affection's tender eye,?Unto their household and their kin?Like ripened corn-sheaves gathered in??O weeper, from that tranquil sod,?That holy harvest-home of God,?Turn to the quick and suffering, shed?Thy tears upon the living dead?Thank God above thy dear ones' graves,?They sleep with Him, they are not slaves.
What dark mass, down the mountain-sides?Swift-pouring, like a stream divides??A long, loose, straggling caravan,?Camel and horse and armed man.?The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'er?Its grave of waters to the shore,?Lights tip that mountain cavalcade,?And gleams from gun and spear and blade?Near and more near! now o'er them falls?The shadow of the city walls.?Hark to the sentry's challenge, drowned?In the fierce trumpet's charging sound!?The rush of men, the musket's peal,?The short, sharp clang of meeting steel!
Vain, Moslem, vain thy lifeblood poured?So freely on thy foeman's sword!?Not to the swift nor to the strong?The battles of the right belong;?For he who strikes for Freedom wears?The armor of the captive's prayers,?And Nature proffers to his