The Anti-Slavery Harp

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Title: The Anti-Slavery Harp
Author: Various
Release Date: December 13, 2003 [eBook #10448]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
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THE ANTI-SLAVERY HARP:
A COLLECTION OF SONGS FOR ANTI-SLAVERY
MEETINGS
COMPILED BY
WILLIAM W. BROWN,
A FUGITIVE SLAVE.
1848.
PREFACE.

The demand of the public for a cheap Anti-Slavery Song-Book,
containing Songs of a more recent composition, has induced me to
collect together, and present to the public, the songs contained in this
book.
In making this collection, however, I am indebted to the authors of the
"Liberty Minstrel," and "the Anti-Slavery Melodies," But the larger
portion of these songs has never before been published; some have
never been in print.
To all true friends of the Slave, the Anti-Slavery Harp is
respectfully
dedicated,
W. W. BROWN.
BOSTON, JUNE, 1848.
SONGS.
HAVE WE NOT ALL ONE FATHER?
AM I NOT A MAN AND BROTHER?
AIR--Bride's Farewell.
Am I not a man and brother?
Ought I not, then, to be free?
Sell me
not one to another,
Take not thus my liberty.
Christ our Saviour,
Christ our Saviour,
Died for me as well as thee.
Am I not a man and brother?
Have I not a soul to save?
Oh, do not
my spirit smother,
Making me a wretched slave;
God of mercy,
God of mercy,
Let me fill a freeman's grave!
Yes, thou art a man and brother,
Though thou long hast groaned a
slave,
Bound with cruel cords and tether
From the cradle to the
grave!
Yet the Saviour, yet the Saviour,
Bled and died all souls to
save.

Yes, thou art a man and brother,
Though we long have told thee nay;

And are bound to aid each other,
All along our pilgrim way.

Come and welcome, come and welcome,
Join with us to praise and
pray!
O, PITY THE SLAVE MOTHER.
AIR--Araby's Daughter.
I pity the slave mother, careworn and weary,
Who sighs as she
presses her babe to her breast;
I lament her sad fate, all so hopeless
and dreary,
I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed.
O
who can imagine her heart's deep emotion,
As she thinks of her
children about to be sold;
You may picture the bounds of the
rock-girdled ocean,
But the grief of that mother can never be known.
The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom,
That ever has
bloomed in her path-way below;
It has froze every fountain that
gushed in her bosom,
And chilled her heart's verdure with pitiless
woe;
Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression;
Her
husband still doomed in its desert to stay;
No arm to protect from the
tyrant's aggression--
She must weep as she treads on her desolate
way.
O, slave mother, hope! see--the nation is shaking!
The arm of the
Lord is awake to thy wrong!
The slave-holder's heart now with terror
is quaking,
Salvation and Mercy to Heaven belong!
Rejoice, O
rejoice! for the child thou art rearing,
May one day lift up its
unmanacled form,
While hope, to thy heart, like the rain-bow so
cheering,
Is born, like the rain-bow, 'mid tempest and storm.
THE BLIND SLAVE BOY.
AIR--Sweet Afton.

Come back to me, mother! why linger away
From thy poor little blind
boy, the long weary day!
I mark every footstep, I list to each tone,

And wonder my mother should leave me alone!
There are voices of
sorrow, and voices of glee,
But there's no one to joy or to sorrow with
me;
For each hath of pleasure and trouble his share,
And none for
the poor little blind boy will care.
My mother, come back to me! close to thy breast
Once more let thy
poor little blind one be pressed;
Once more let me feel thy warm
breath on my cheek,
And hear thee in accents of tenderness speak!

O mother! I've no one to love me--no heart
Can bear like thine own in
my sorrows a part;
No hand is so gentle, no voice is so kind,
O!
none like a mother can cherish the blind!
Poor blind one! No mother thy wailing can hear,
No mother can
hasten to banish thy fear;
For the slave-owner drives her, o'er
mountain and wild,
And for one paltry dollar hath sold thee, poor
child!
Ah! who can in language of mortals reveal
The anguish that
none but a mother can feel,
When man in his vile lust of mammon
hath trod
On her child, who is stricken and smitten of God!
Blind, helpless, forsaken, with strangers alone,
She hears in her
anguish his piteous moan,
As he eagerly listens--but listens in vain,

To catch the loved tones of his mother again!
The curse of the broken
in spirit shall fall
On the wretch who hath mingled this wormwood