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

on;

Thus saith the Lord: Break every yoke,
Undo the heavy burden

1850.

IN THE EVIL DAYS.
This and the four following poems have special reference to that
darkest hour in the aggression of slavery which preceded the dawn of a
better day, when the conscience of the people was roused to action.
THE evil days have come, the poor
Are made a prey;
Bar up the
hospitable door,
Put out the fire-lights, point no more
The
wanderer's way.
For Pity now is crime; the chain
Which binds our States
Is melted
at her hearth in twain,
Is rusted by her tears' soft rain
Close up her
gates.
Our Union, like a glacier stirred
By voice below,
Or bell of kine, or
wing of bird,
A beggar's crust, a kindly word
May overthrow!
Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast
Our blood and name;

Bursting its century-bolted frost,
Each gray cairn on the Northman's
coast
Cries out for shame!
Oh for the open firmament,
The prairie free,
The desert hillside,
cavern-rent,
The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent,
The Bushman's
tree!
Than web of Persian loom most rare,
Or soft divan,
Better the
rough rock, bleak and bare,
Or hollow tree, which man may share

With suffering man.
I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law,
Let Love be dumb;
Clasping
her liberal hands in awe,
Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw
From
hearth and home."
I hear another voice: "The poor
Are thine to feed;
Turn not the
outcast from thy door,
Nor give to bonds and wrong once more

Whom God hath freed."

Dear Lord! between that law and Thee
No choice remains;
Yet not
untrue to man's decree,
Though spurning its rewards, is he
Who
bears its pains.
Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast
And threatening word;
I read the
lesson of the Past,
That firm endurance wins at last
More than the
sword.
O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou
So calm and strong!
Lend
strength to weakness, teach us how
The sleepless eyes of God look
through
This night of wrong
1850.
MOLOCH IN STATE STREET.
In a foot-note of the Report of the Senate of Massachusetts on the case
of the arrest and return to bondage of the fugitive slave Thomas Sims it
is stated that--"It would have been impossible for the U. S. marshal thus
successfully to have resisted the law of the State, without the assistance
of the municipal authorities of Boston, and the countenance and
support of a numerous, wealthy, and powerful body of citizens. It was
in evidence that 1500 of the most wealthy and respectable
citizens-merchants, bankers, and others--volunteered their services to
aid the marshal on this occasion. . . . No watch was kept upon the
doings of the marshal, and while the State officers slept, after the moon
had gone down, in the darkest hour before daybreak, the accused was
taken out of our jurisdiction by the armed police of the city of Boston."
THE moon has set: while yet the dawn
Breaks cold and gray,

Between the midnight and the morn
Bear off your prey!
On, swift and still! the conscious street
Is panged and stirred;
Tread
light! that fall of serried feet
The dead have heard!
The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins
Gushed where ye tread;

Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stains
Blush darkly red!

Beneath the slowly waning stars
And whitening day,
What stern
and awful presence bars
That sacred way?
What faces frown upon ye, dark
With shame and pain?
Come these
from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark?
Is that young Vane?
Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on
With mocking cheer?
Lo!
spectral Andros, Hutchinson,
And Gage are here!
For ready mart or favoring blast
Through Moloch's fire,
Flesh of his
flesh, unsparing, passed
The Tyrian sire.
Ye make that ancient sacrifice
Of Mail to Gain,
Your traffic thrives,
where Freedom dies,
Beneath the chain.
Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scorn
And hate, is near;
How think ye
freemen, mountain-born,
The tale will hear?
Thank God! our mother State can yet
Her fame retrieve;
To you and
to your children let
The scandal cleave.
Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press,
Make gods of gold;
Let
honor, truth, and manliness
Like wares be sold.
Your hoards are great, your walls are strong,
But God is just;
The
gilded chambers built by wrong
Invite the rust.
What! know ye not the gains of Crime
Are dust and dross;
Its
ventures on the waves of time
Foredoomed to loss!
And still the Pilgrim State remains
What she hath been;
Her inland
hills, her seaward plains,
Still nurture men!
Nor wholly lost the fallen mart;
Her olden blood
Through many a
free and generous heart
Still pours its flood.

That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet,
Shall know no check,
Till
a free people's foot is set
On Slavery's neck.
Even now, the peal of bell and gun,
And hills aflame,
Tell of the
first great triumph won
In Freedom's name. [10]
The long night dies: the welcome gray
Of dawn we see;
Speed up
the heavens thy perfect day,
God of the free!
1851.
OFFICIAL PIETY.
Suggested by reading a state paper, wherein the higher law is invoked
to sustain the lower one.
A Pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout
The wondering
churches. Who shall henceforth doubt
That the long-wished
millennium draweth nigh?
Sin in high places has become devout,

Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie
Straight up to
Heaven, and calls it piety!
The