Poems in War Time, vol 3, part 4 | Page 3

young and brave?
How weigh the gift
that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?

"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,

What hope remains for thee and me."
Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the
sun,
When human rights are staked and won.
"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of
rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.
"The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march
I led,
My voice Magenta's charges sped.
"But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless
fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.
"On either side my foe they own
One guards through love his ghastly
throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.
"Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,
By open foes, or those
afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid?
"Why watch to see who win or fall?
I shake the dust against them all,

I leave them to their senseless brawl."
"Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait;
The doom is near, the stake
is great
God knoweth if it be too late.
"Still wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of
prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare."
"Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,
"Too late!" its mournful echo
sighed,
In low lament the answer died.
A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,

So passed the vision, sound and sight.

But round me, like a silver bell
Rung down the listening sky to tell

Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
"Still hope and trust," it sang; "the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must
be trod,
But all is possible with God!"
1862.
TO ENGLISHMEN.
Written when, in the stress of our terrible war,
the English ruling class, with few exceptions, were either coldly
indifferent or hostile to the party of freedom. Their attitude was
illustrated by caricatures of America, among which was one of a
slaveholder and cowhide, with the motto, "Haven't I a right to wallop
my nigger?"
You flung your taunt across the wave
We bore it as became us,

Well knowing that the fettered slave
Left friendly lips no option save

To pity or to blame us.
You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will,
Not lack of power," you
told us
We showed our free-state records; still
You mocked,
confounding good and ill,
Slave-haters and slaveholders.
We struck at Slavery; to the verge
Of power and means we checked it;

Lo!--presto, change! its claims you urge,
Send greetings to it o'er
the surge,
And comfort and protect it.
But yesterday you scarce could shake,
In slave-abhorring rigor,
Our
Northern palms for conscience' sake
To-day you clasp the hands that
ache
With "walloping the nigger!"
O Englishmen!--in hope and creed,
In blood and tongue our brothers!

We too are heirs of Runnymede;
And Shakespeare's fame and
Cromwell's deed
Are not alone our mother's.
"Thicker than water," in one rill
Through centuries of story
Our
Saxon blood has flowed, and still
We share with you its good and ill,


The shadow and the glory.
Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave
Nor length of years can part
us
Your right is ours to shrine and grave,
The common freehold of
the brave,
The gift of saints and martyrs.
Our very sins and follies teach
Our kindred frail and human
We
carp at faults with bitter speech,
The while, for one unshared by each,

We have a score in common.
We bowed the heart, if not the knee,
To England's Queen, God bless
her
We praised you when your slaves went free
We seek to unchain
ours. Will ye
Join hands with the oppressor?
And is it Christian England cheers
The bruiser, not the bruised?

And must she run, despite the tears
And prayers of eighteen hundred
years,
Amuck in Slavery's crusade?
Oh, black disgrace! Oh, shame and loss
Too deep for tongue to
phrase on
Tear from your flag its holy cross,
And in your van of
battle toss
The pirate's skull-bone blazon!
1862.
MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS.
It is recorded that the Chians, when subjugated by Mithridates of
Cappadocia, were delivered up to their own slaves, to be carried away
captive to Colchis. Athenxus considers this a just punishment for their
wickedness in first introducing the slave-trade into Greece. From this
ancient villany of the Chians the proverb arose, "The Chian hath bought
himself a master."
KNOW'ST thou, O slave-cursed land
How, when the Chian's cup of
guilt
Was full to overflow, there came
God's justice in the sword of
flame
That, red with slaughter to its hilt,
Blazed in the Cappadocian
victor's hand?

The heavens are still and far;
But, not unheard of awful Jove,
The
sighing of the island slave
Was answered, when the AEgean wave

The keels of Mithridates clove,
And the vines shrivelled in the breath
of war.
"Robbers of Chios! hark,"
The victor cried, "to Heaven's decree!

Pluck your last cluster from the vine,
Drain your last cup of Chian
wine;
Slaves of your slaves, your doom shall be,
In Colchian mines
by Phasis rolling dark."
Then rose the long lament
From the hoar sea-god's dusky caves
The
priestess rent her hair and cried,
"Woe! woe! The gods are
sleepless-eyed!"
And,