Anti Slavery Poems III, vol 3, part 3 | Page 7

match the crime,
Rise to a level with the time;

And, if a son of thine
Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like
For
Fatherland and Freedom strike
As Justice gives the sign.
Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease,
The great occasion's forelock
seize;
And let the north-wind strong,
And golden leaves of autumn,
be
Thy coronal of Victory
And thy triumphal song.
10th me.,
1856.
LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.
The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men, in Southern Kansas, in
May, 1858, took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French
voyageurs.
A BLUSH as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the
bunch-grass,
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild
bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun.
Back, steed of the prairies
Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither,
bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack!
The foul human vultures

Have feasted and fled;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from
the dead.
From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned
and unweaponed,
The victims were torn,--
By the whirlwind of
murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands,

The Marsh of the Swan.
With a vain plea for mercy
No stout knee was crooked;
In the
mouths of the rifles

Right manly they looked.
How paled the May

sunshine,
O Marais du Cygne!
On death for the strong life,
On
red grass for green!
In the homes of their rearing,
Yet warm with their lives,
Ye wait the
dead only,
Poor children and wives!
Put out the red forge-fire,

The smith shall not come;
Unyoke the brown oxen,
The ploughman
lies dumb.
Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,
O dreary death-train,
With
pressed lips as bloodless
As lips of the slain!
Kiss down the young
eyelids,
Smooth down the gray hairs;
Let tears quench the curses

That burn through your prayers.
Strong man of the prairies,
Mourn bitter and wild!
Wail, desolate
woman!
Weep, fatherless child!
But the grain of God springs up

From ashes beneath,
And the crown of his harvest
Is life out of
death.
Not in vain on the dial
The shade moves along,
To point the great
contrasts
Of right and of wrong:
Free homes and free altars,
Free
prairie and flood,--
The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,
Whose bloom is
of blood!
On the lintels of Kansas
That blood shall not dry;
Henceforth the
Bad Angel
Shall harmless go by;
Henceforth to the sunset,

Unchecked on her way,
Shall Liberty follow
The march of the day.
THE PASS OF THE SIERRA.
ALL night above their rocky bed
They saw the stars march slow;

The wild Sierra overhead,

The desert's death below.
The Indian from his lodge of bark,
The gray bear from his den,

Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark,
Glared on the mountain men.
Still upward turned, with anxious strain,
Their leader's sleepless eye,


Where splinters of the mountain chain
Stood black against the sky.
The night waned slow: at last, a glow,
A gleam of sudden fire,
Shot
up behind the walls of snow,
And tipped each icy spire.
"Up, men!" he cried, "yon rocky cone,
To-day, please God, we'll pass,

And look from Winter's frozen throne
On Summer's flowers and
grass!"
They set their faces to the blast,
They trod the eternal snow,
And
faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last
The promised land below.
Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed
By many an icy horn;

Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed,
And green with vines and
corn.
They left the Winter at their backs
To flap his baffled wing,
And
downward, with the cataracts,
Leaped to the lap of Spring.
Strong leader of that mountain band,
Another task remains,
To
break from Slavery's desert land
A path to Freedom's plains.
The winds are wild, the way is drear,
Yet, flashing through the night,

Lo! icy ridge and rocky spear
Blaze out in morning light!
Rise up, Fremont! and go before;
The hour must have its Man;
Put
on the hunting-shirt once more,
And lead in Freedom's van!
8th mo.,
1856.
A SONG FOR THE TIME.
Written in the summer of 1856, during the political campaign of the
Free Soil party under the candidacy of John C. Fremont.
Up, laggards of Freedom!--our free flag is cast
To the blaze of the sun
and the wings of the blast;
Will ye turn from a struggle so bravely

begun,
From a foe that is breaking, a field that's half won?
Whoso loves not his kind, and who fears not the Lord,
Let him join
that foe's service, accursed and abhorred
Let him do his base will, as
the slave only can,--
Let him put on the bloodhound, and put off the
Man!
Let him go where the cold blood that creeps in his veins
Shall stiffen
the slave-whip, and rust on his chains;
Where the black slave shall
laugh in his bonds, to behold
The White Slave beside him,
self-fettered and sold!
But ye, who still boast of hearts beating and warm,
Rise, from lake
shore and ocean's, like waves in a storm,
Come, throng round our
banner in Liberty's name,
Like winds from your mountains, like
prairies aflame!
Our foe, hidden long in his ambush of night,
Now, forced from his
covert, stands black in the light.
Oh, the cruel to Man, and the hateful
to God,
Smite him down to the earth, that is cursed where he trod!
For deeper than thunder of summer's loud shower,
On