And oh, we feel thy presence here-
Thy awful arm in judgment bare!
Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear—
Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer
Praise for the pride of man is low,
The counsels of the wise are nought,
The fountains of repentance flow;
What hath our God in mercy wrought?
Speed on thy work, Lord God of Hosts!
And when the bondman's chain is riven,
And swells from all our guilty coasts
The anthem of the free to Heaven,
Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led,
As with thy cloud and fire before,
But unto Thee, in fear and dread,
Be praise and glory ever more.
WRITTEN for the Anniversary celebration of the First of August at Milton, 1846.
A FEW brief years have passed away
Since Britain drove her million slaves
Beneath the tropic's fiery ray:
God willed their freedom; and to-day
Life blooms above those island graves!
He spoke across the Carib sea,
We heard the clash of breaking chains,
And felt the heart-throb of the free,
The first, strong pulse of liberty
Which thrilled along the bondman's veins.
Though long delayed, and far, and slow,
The Briton's triumph shall be ours •
Wears slavery here a prouder brow
Than that which twelve short years ago
Scowled darkly from her island bowers?
Mighty alike for good or ill
With mother-land, we fully share
The Saxon strength-the nerve of steel--
The tireless energy of will,—
The power to do, the pride to dare.
What she has done can we not do?
Our hour and men are both at hand;
The blast which Freedom's angel blew
O'er her green islands, echoes through
Each valley of our forest land.
Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn
The death of slavery.-When it falls
Look to your vassals in their turn,
Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn,
Your prisons and your palace walls!
Oh kingly mockers!-scoffing show
What deeds in Freedom's name we do;
Yet know that every taunt ye throw
Across the waters, goads our slow
Progression towards the right and true.
Not always shall your outraged poor,
Appalled by democratic crime,
Grind as their fathers ground before,--
The hour which sees our prison door
Swing wide shall be their triumph time.
On then, my brothers! every blow
Ye deal is felt the wide earth through;
Whatever here uplifts the low
Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe,
Blesses the Old World through the New.
Take heart! The promised hour draws near-
I hear the downward beat of wings,
And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear:
Joy to the people !-woe and fear
To new world tyrants, old world kings!”
OY A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
GONE, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air,—
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters-
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Oh, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and racked with pain,
To their cheerless homes again—
There no brother's voice shall greet them--
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters-
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone—sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of play— From the cool spring where they drankRock, and hill, and rivulet bankFrom the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,―
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone-
Toiling through the weary day,
And at night the spoiler's prey.
Oh, that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth-
By the bruised reed He spareth—
Oh, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than a mother's love.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,-
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
WHEN Freedom, on her natal day,
Within her war-rocked cradle lay,
An iron race around her stood,
Baptized her infant brow in blood;
And, through the storm which round her swept,
Their constant ward and watching kept.
Then, where our quiet herds repose,
The roar of baleful battle rose,
And brethren of a common tongue
To mortal strife as tigers sprung,
And every gift on Freedom's shrine
Wa as man for beast, and blood for wine!
Our fathers to their graves have gone;
Their strife is past-their triumph won;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honored place-
A moral warfare with the crime
And folly of an evil time.
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