Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 7

Society were demanding that the free blacks should be
sent to Africa, and opposing Emancipation unless expatriation followed.
See the report of the proceedings of the society at its annual meeting in
1834.
HAVE ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen,
Through
cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men?
The lords of our land to
this hunting have gone,
As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the
horn;
Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip,
And the
yell of the hound as he fastens his grip!
All blithe are our hunters, and
noble their match,
Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to
catch.
So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen,
Through
cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men!
Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride
In the glow of their zeal,
and the strength of their pride! The priest with his cassock flung back
on the wind,
Just screening the politic statesman behind;
The saint
and the sinner, with cursing and prayer,
The drunk and the sober, ride
merrily there.
And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid,

For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid
Her foot's in the stirrup,
her hand on the rein,
How blithely she rides to the hunting of men!
Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see,
In this "land of the brave
and this home of the free."
Priest, warrior, and statesman, from
Georgia to Maine,
All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein;

Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin
Is the curl of his hair
and the hue of his skin!
Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at
bay
Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey?
Will
their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when All roughly
they ride to the hunting of men?
Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint,
Wax the curse of the

sinner and prayer of the saint.
The horn is wound faintly, the echoes
are still,
Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill.
Haste, alms
for our hunters! the hunted once more
Have turned from their flight
with their backs to the shore What right have they here in the home of
the white,
Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right?
Ho!
alms for the hunters! or never again
Will they ride in their pomp to
the hunting of men!
Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay,
When their pride and
their glory are melting away?
The parson has turned; for, on charge
of his own,
Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone?
The politic
statesman looks back with a sigh,
There is doubt in his heart, there is
fear in his eye.
Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail,

And the head of his steed take the place of the tail.
Oh, haste, ere he
leave us! for who will ride then,
For pleasure or gain, to the hunting
of men?
1835.
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
The "Times" referred to were those evil times of the pro-slavery
meeting in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, in which a demand was
made for the suppression of free speech, lest it should endanger the
foundation of commercial society.
Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to
win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they
slumber in?
Are we the sons by whom are borne
The mantles which
the dead have worn?
And shall we crouch above these graves,
With craven soul and
fettered lip?
Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,
And tremble
at the driver's whip?
Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak
but as our masters please.
Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?
Shall Mercy's tears no longer

flow?
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel,
The dungeon's gloom,
the assassin's blow,
Turn back the spirit roused to save
The Truth,
our Country, and the Slave?
Of human skulls that shrine was made,
Round which the priests of
Mexico
Before their loathsome idol prayed;
Is Freedom's altar
fashioned so?
And must we yield to Freedom's God,
As offering
meet, the negro's blood?
Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought
Which well might
shame extremest hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?

Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed?--shall Truth
succumb?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?
No; by each spot of haunted ground,
Where Freedom weeps her
children's fall;
By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound;
By
Griswold's stained and shattered wall;
By Warren's ghost, by
Langdon's shade;
By all the memories of our dead.
By their enlarging souls, which burst
The bands and fetters round
them set;
By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed
Within our inmost
bosoms, yet,
By all above, around, below,
Be ours the indignant
answer,--No!
No; guided by our country's laws,
For truth, and right, and suffering
man,
Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause,
As Christians may, as
freemen can!
Still pouring on unwilling ears
That truth oppression
only fears.
What! shall we guard our neighbor still,
While woman shrieks
beneath his rod,
And while he tramples down at will
The image of a
common God?
Shall watch and ward be round him set,
Of Northern
nerve