Anti Slavery Poems III, vol 3, part 3 | Page 5

Haschish of the East?Is powerless to our Western Cotton!?1854.
FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE.
Inscribed to friends under arrest for treason against the slave power.
THE age is dull and mean. Men creep,?Not walk; with blood too pale and tame?To pay the debt they owe to shame;?Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep?Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want;?Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep?Six days to Mammon, one to Cant.
In such a time, give thanks to God,?That somewhat of the holy rage?With which the prophets in their age?On all its decent seemings trod,?Has set your feet upon the lie,?That man and ox and soul and clod?Are market stock to sell and buy!
The hot words from your lips, my own,?To caution trained, might not repeat;?But if some tares among the wheat?Of generous thought and deed were sown,?No common wrong provoked your zeal;?The silken gauntlet that is thrown?In such a quarrel rings like steel.
The brave old strife the fathers saw?For Freedom calls for men again?Like those who battled not in vain?For England's Charter, Alfred's law;?And right of speech and trial just?Wage in your name their ancient war?With venal courts and perjured trust.
God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late,?They touch the shining hills of day;?The evil cannot brook delay,?The good can well afford to wait.?Give ermined knaves their hour of crime;?Ye have the future grand and great,?The safe appeal of Truth to Time!?1855.
THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.
This poem and the three following were called out by the popular movement of Free State men to occupy the territory of Kansas, and by the use of the great democratic weapon--an over-powering majority--to settle the conflict on that ground between Freedom and Slavery. The opponents of the movement used another kind of weapon.
WE cross the prairie as of old?The pilgrims crossed the sea,?To make the West, as they the East,?The homestead of the free!
We go to rear a wall of men?On Freedom's southern line,?And plant beside the cotton-tree?The rugged Northern pine!
We're flowing from our native hills?As our free rivers flow;?The blessing of our Mother-land?Is on us as we go.
We go to plant her common schools,?On distant prairie swells,?And give the Sabbaths of the wild?The music of her bells.
Upbearing, like the Ark of old,?The Bible in our van,?We go to test the truth of God?Against the fraud of man.
No pause, nor rest, save where the streams?That feed the Kansas run,?Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon?Shall flout the setting sun.
We'll tread the prairie as of old?Our fathers sailed the sea,?And make the West, as they the East,?The homestead of the free!?1854.
LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL?CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN.
DOUGLAS MISSION, August, 1854,
LAST week--the Lord be praised for all His mercies?To His unworthy servant!--I arrived?Safe at the Mission, via Westport; where?I tarried over night, to aid in forming?A Vigilance Committee, to send back,?In shirts of tar, and feather-doublets quilted?With forty stripes save one, all Yankee comers,?Uncircumcised and Gentile, aliens from?The Commonwealth of Israel, who despise?The prize of the high calling of the saints,?Who plant amidst this heathen wilderness?Pure gospel institutions, sanctified?By patriarchal use. The meeting opened?With prayer, as was most fitting. Half an hour,?Or thereaway, I groaned, and strove, and wrestled,?As Jacob did at Penuel, till the power?Fell on the people, and they cried 'Amen!'?"Glory to God!" and stamped and clapped their hands;?And the rough river boatmen wiped their eyes;?"Go it, old hoss!" they cried, and cursed the niggers--?Fulfilling thus the word of prophecy,?"Cursed be Cannan." After prayer, the meeting?Chose a committee--good and pious men--?A Presbyterian Elder, Baptist deacon,?A local preacher, three or four class-leaders,?Anxious inquirers, and renewed backsliders,?A score in all--to watch the river ferry,?(As they of old did watch the fords of Jordan,)?And cut off all whose Yankee tongues refuse?The Shibboleth of the Nebraska bill.?And then, in answer to repeated calls,?I gave a brief account of what I saw?In Washington; and truly many hearts?Rejoiced to know the President, and you?And all the Cabinet regularly hear?The gospel message of a Sunday morning,?Drinking with thirsty souls of the sincere?Milk of the Word. Glory! Amen, and Selah!
Here, at the Mission, all things have gone well?The brother who, throughout my absence, acted?As overseer, assures me that the crops?Never were better. I have lost one negro,?A first-rate hand, but obstinate and sullen.?He ran away some time last spring, and hid?In the river timber. There my Indian converts?Found him, and treed and shot him. For the rest,?The heathens round about begin to feel?The influence of our pious ministrations?And works of love; and some of them already?Have purchased negroes, and are settling down?As sober Christians! Bless the Lord for this!?I know it will rejoice you. You, I hear,?Are on the eve of visiting Chicago,?To fight with the wild beasts of Ephesus,?Long John, and Dutch Free-Soilers. May your arm?Be clothed with strength, and on your tongue be found?The sweet oil of persuasion. So desires?Your brother and co-laborer. Amen!
P.S.