Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 5

or the day.
The blossom of the
orange
Was white by every stream,
And tropic leaf, and flower, and
bird
Were in the warns sunbeam.
And the sky was bright as ever,
And the moonlight slept as well,

On the palm-trees by the hillside,
And the streamlet of the dell:
And
the glances of the Creole
Were still as archly deep,
And her smiles
as full as ever
Of passion and of sleep.
But vain were bird and blossom,
The green earth and the sky,
And
the smile of human faces,
To the slaver's darkened eye;
At the
breaking of the morning,
At the star-lit evening time,
O'er a world
of light and beauty
Fell the blackness of his crime.
1834.
EXPOSTULATION.
Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the
freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with
the abolitionists, and at a convention of delegates from all the
antislavery organizations in New England, held at Boston in May, 1834,
was chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of
New England. Toward the close of the address occurred the passage
which suggested these lines. "The despotism which our fathers could
not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in
her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall
the United States--the free United States, which could not bear the
bonds of a king--cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a
Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and
buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a
kingdom in its age?" --Dr. Follen's Address.
"Genius of America!--Spirit of our free institutions!--where art thou?
How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! son of the morning,--how art thou
fallen from Heaven! Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee
at thy coming! The kings of the earth cry out to thee, Aha! Aha! Art

thou become like unto us?"--Speech of Samuel J. May.
OUR fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves, in a land of light and law!

Slaves, crouching on the very plains
Where rolled the storm of
Freedom's war!
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood,
A. wail where
Camden's martyrs fell,
By every shrine of patriot blood,
From
Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well!
By storied hill and hallowed grot,
By mossy wood and marshy glen,

Whence rang of old the rifle-shot,
And hurrying shout of Marion's
men!
The groan of breaking hearts is there,
The falling lash, the
fetter's clank!
Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air
Which old De
Kalb and Sumter drank!
What, ho! our countrymen in chains!
The whip on woman's shrinking
flesh!
Our soil yet reddening with the stains
Caught from her
scourging, warm and fresh!
What! mothers from their children riven!

What! God's own image bought and sold!
Americans to market
driven,
And bartered as the brute for gold!
Speak! shall their agony of prayer
Come thrilling to our hearts in vain?

To us whose fathers scorned to bear
The paltry menace of a chain;

To us, whose boast is loud and long
Of holy Liberty and Light;

Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong
Plead vainly for their
plundered Right?
What! shall we send, with lavish breath,
Our sympathies across the
wave,
Where Manhood, on the field of death,
Strikes for his
freedom or a grave?
Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung
For
Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning,
And millions hail with pen and
tongue
Our light on all her altars burning?
Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France,
By Vendome's pile and
Schoenbrun's wall,
And Poland, gasping on her lance,
The impulse
of our cheering call?
And shall the slave, beneath our eye,

Clank

o'er our fields his hateful chain?
And toss his fettered arms on high,

And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain?
Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be
A refuge for the stricken slave?

And shall the Russian serf go free
By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave?

And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane
Relax the iron hand of pride,

And bid his bondmen cast the chain
From fettered soul and limb
aside?
Shall every flap of England's flag
Proclaim that all around are free,

From farthest Ind to each blue crag
That beetles o'er the Western Sea?

And shall we scoff at Europe's kings,
When Freedom's fire is dim
with us,
And round our country's altar clings
The damning shade of
Slavery's curse?
Go, let us ask of Constantine
To loose his grasp on Poland's throat;

And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line
To spare the struggling Suliote;

Will not the scorching answer come
From turbaned Turk, and
scornful Russ
"Go, loose your fettered slaves at home,
Then turn,
and ask the like of us!"
Just God! and shall we calmly rest,
The Christian's scorn, the
heathen's mirth,
Content to live the lingering jest
And by-word of a
mocking Earth?
Shall our own glorious land retain
That curse
which Europe scorns to bear?
Shall our own brethren drag the chain

Which not even Russia's menials wear?
Up, then, in Freedom's manly part,
From graybeard eld to fiery youth,

And on the nation's naked heart
Scatter the living coals of Truth!

Up! while ye slumber, deeper yet
The shadow of our fame is growing!

Up! while ye pause, our sun may set
In