Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 6

blood, around our altars
flowing!
Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth,
The gathered wrath of God
and man,
Like that which wasted Egypt's earth,
When hail and fire

above it ran.
Hear ye no warnings in the air?
Feel ye no earthquake
underneath?
Up, up! why will ye slumber where
The sleeper only
wakes in death?
Rise now for Freedom! not in strife
Like that your sterner fathers saw,

The awful waste of human life,
The glory and the guilt of war:'

But break the chain, the yoke remove,
And smite to earth
Oppression's rod,
With those mild arms of Truth and Love,
Made
mighty through the living God!
Down let the shrine of Moloch sink,
And leave no traces where it
stood;
Nor longer let its idol drink
His daily cup of human blood;

But rear another altar there,
To Truth and Love and Mercy given,

And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer,
Shall call an answer down
from Heaven!
1834
HYMN.
Written for the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham Street
Chapel, New York, held on the 4th of the seventh month, 1834.
O THOU, whose presence went before
Our fathers in their weary way,

As with Thy chosen moved of yore
The fire by night, the cloud by
day!
When from each temple of the free,
A nation's song ascends to
Heaven,
Most Holy Father! unto Thee
May not our humble prayer
be given?
Thy children all, though hue and form
Are varied in Thine own good
will,
With Thy own holy breathings warm,
And fashioned in Thine
image still.
We thank Thee, Father! hill and plain
Around us wave their fruits
once more,
And clustered vine, and blossomed grain,
Are bending
round each cottage door.

And peace is here; and hope and love
Are round us as a mantle
thrown,
And unto Thee, supreme above,
The knee of prayer is
bowed alone.
But oh, for those this day can bring,
As unto us, no joyful thrill;
For
those who, under Freedom's wing,
Are bound in Slavery's fetters still:
For those to whom Thy written word
Of light and love is never given;

For those whose ears have never heard
The promise and the hope
of heaven!
For broken heart, and clouded mind,
Whereon no human mercies fall;

Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined,
Who, as a Father, pitiest all!
And grant, O Father! that the time
Of Earth's deliverance may be near,

When every land and tongue and clime
The message of Thy love
shall hear;
When, smitten as with fire from heaven,
The captive's chain shall
sink in dust,
And to his fettered soul be given
The glorious freedom
of the just,
THE YANKEE GIRL.
SHE sings by her wheel at that low cottage-door,
Which the long
evening shadow is stretching before,
With a music as sweet as the
music which seems
Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams!
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing
out from the blue of the sky!
And lightly and freely her dark tresses
play
O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they!
Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-door,
The haughty and
rich to the humble and poor?
'T is the great Southern planter, the
master who waves
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.

"Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin,
Who would
pass for our slaves with a change of their skin;
Let them toil as they
will at the loom or the wheel,
Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to
feel!
"But thou art too lovely and precious a gem
To be bound to their
burdens and sullied by them;
For shame, Ellen, shame, cast thy
bondage aside,
And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.
"Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong,
But where
flowers are blossoming all the year long,
Where the shade of the
palm-tree is over my home,
And the lemon and orange are white in
their bloom!
"Oh, come to my home, where my servants shall all
Depart at thy
bidding and come at thy call;
They shall heed thee as mistress with
trembling and awe,
And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law."
"Oh, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls--
Arise and cast
back the dark wealth of her curls,
With a scorn in her eye which the
gazer could feel,
And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel!
"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the
blood of the hearts thou halt sold;
Thy home may be lovely, but
round it I hear
The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!
"And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours,
And greener thy
landscapes, and fairer thy' flowers;
But dearer the blast round our
mountains which raves,
Than the sweet summer zephyr which
breathes over slaves!
"Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel,
With the iron of
bondage on spirit and heel;
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner
would be
In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!"
1835.

THE HUNTERS OF MEN.
These lines were written when the orators of the American
Colonization