And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay! Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill, And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill. The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters Deep calling unto deep aloud-the sound of many waters! Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand? No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land! Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and hunted for our livesAnd shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves! We wage no war-we lift no arm-we fling no torch within The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin; We leave ye with your bondmer, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and God-like soul of man! But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given For freedom and humanity, is registered in Heaven: No slave-hunt in our borders-no pirate on o strand! No fetters in the Bay State-no slave upon our land! THE RELIC. [PENNSYLVANIA HALL, dedicated to Free Discussion and ho cause of human liberty, was destroyed by a mob in 1838. 'The following was written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work which the fire had spared.] TOKEN of friendship true and tried, With honest pride the gift I take, But not alone because it tells Of generous hand and heart sincere; Earth's noblest aim-man's holiest thought, Pure thoughts and sweet, like flowers unfold, In beauty blossoming: And buds of feeling pure and good Relic of Freedom's shrine !-a brand Of a lost friend to me! Flower of a perished garland left, Oh! if the young enthusiast bears, If leaflets from some hero's tomb, Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary,- Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing Or Runnymede's wild English rose, If it be true that things like these To heart and eye bright visions bring, Shall not far holier memories To this memorial cling? Which needs no mellowing mist of time Wreck of a temple, unprofaned Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod, Lifting on high, with hands unstained, Thanksgiving unto God; Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading For human hearts in bondage bleeding!— Where midst the sound of rushing feet And Riot turned his scowling glance, That temple now in ruin lies!- But from that ruin, as of old, The fire-scorched stones themselves am And from their ashes white and cold A voice which slavery cannot kill And even this relic from thy shrine, And, grasping it, methinks I feel And not unlike that mystic rod, Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, It yet may point the bondman's way, THE BRANDED HAND. 1846. WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve, in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain! Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim To make God's truth thy falsehood, his holiest work thy shame ? When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the iron was withdrawn, How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to scorn ! They change to wrong, the duty which God hath written out On the great heart of humanity too legible for doubt! They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown, Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown! Why, that brand is highest honor !—than its traces never yet Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set; And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of their father's BRANDED HAND! |