The Liberty Minstrel | Page 6

him was at strife,?With such accursed gains;?For he knew whose passions gave her life,?Whose blood ran in her veins.
But the voice of nature was too weak:?He took the glittering gold!?Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek,?Her hands as icy cold.
The Slaver led her from the door,?He led her by the hand,?To be his slave and paramour?In a far and distant land.
Domestic Bliss.
BY REV. JAMES GREGG.
Domestic bliss; thou fairest flower?That erst in Eden grew,?Dear relic of the happy bower,?Our first grand parents knew!
We hail thee in the rugged soil?Of this waste wilderness,?To cheer our way and cheat our toil,?With gleams of happiness.
In thy mild light we travel on,?And smile at toil and pain;?And think no more of Eden gone,?For Eden won again.
Such, Emily, the bliss, the joy?By Heaven bestowed on you;?A husband kind, a lovely boy,?A father fond and true.
Religion adds her cheering beams,?And sanctifies these ties;?And sheds o'er all the brighter gleams,?She borrows from the skies.
But ah! reflect; are _all_ thus blest??Hath home such charms for _all_??Can such delights as these invest?Foul slavery's wretched thrall?
Can those be happy in these ties?Who wear her galling chain??Or taste the blessed charities?That in the household reign?
Can those be blest, whose hope, whose life,?Hang on a tyrant's nod;?To whom nor husband, child, nor wife?Are known--yea, scarcely God?
Whose ties may all be rudely riven,?At avarice' fell behest;?Whose only hope of _home_ is heaven,?The grave their only rest.
Oh! think of those, the poor, th' oppressed,?In your full hour of bliss;?Nor e'er from prayer and effort rest,?While earth bears woe like this.
O PITY THE SLAVE MOTHER.
Words from the Liberator. Air, Araby's Daughter.
[Music]
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 pathway 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.
How long! O! how long!
How long will the friend of the slave plead in vain??How long e'er the Christian will loosen the chain??If he, by our efforts, more hardened should be,?O Father, forgive him! we trust but in thee.?That 'we're all free and equal,' how senseless the cry,?While millions in bondage are groaning so nigh!?O where is our freedom? equality where??To this none can answer, but echo cries, where?
O'er this stain on our country we'd fain draw a veil,?But history's page will proclaim the sad tale,?That Christians, unblushing, could shout 'we are free,'?Whilst they the oppressors of millions could be.?They can feel for themselves, for the Pole they can feel,?Towards Afric's children their hearts are like steel;?They are deaf to their call, to their wrongs they are blind; In error they slumber nor seek truth to find.
Though scorn and oppression on our pathway attend,?Despised and reviled, we the slave will befriend;?Our Father, thy blessing! we look but to thee,?Nor cease from our labors till all shall be free.?Should mobs in their fury with missiles assail,?The cause it is righteous, the truth will prevail;?Then heed not their clamors, though loud they proclaim?That freedom shall slumber, and slavery reign.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE TO THE CHRISTIAN.
Words by Elizur Wright, jr. Music arranged from Cracovienne.
[Music]
The fetters galled my weary soul,--?A soul that seemed but thrown away;?I spurned the tyrant's base control,?Resolved at last the man to play:--
Chorus.
The hounds are baying on my track;?O Christian! will you send me back??The hounds are baying on my track;?O Christian! will you send me back?
I felt the stripes, the lash I saw,?Red, dripping with a father's gore;?And, worst of all their lawless law,?The insults that my mother bore!?The hounds are baying on my track,?O Christian! will you send me back?
Where human law o'errules Divine,?Beneath the sheriff's hammer fell?My wife and babes,--I call them mine,--?And where they suffer, who can tell??The hounds are baying on my track,?O Christian! will you send me back?
I seek a home where man is man,?If such there be upon this earth,?To draw my kindred, if I can,?Around its free, though humble hearth.?The hounds are