So let it be. In God's own might
We gird us for the coming fight,

And, strong in Him whose cause is ours
In conflict with unholy powers,

We grasp the weapons He has given,-
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven'

THE WORLD'S CONVENTION

OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION, HELD IN LONDON IN 1840

YES, let them gather!-Summon forth
The pledged philanthropy of Earth,
From every land, whose hills have heard
The bugle blast of Freedom waking;.
Or shrieking of her symbol-bird

From out his cloudy eyrie breaking;
Where Justice hath one worshipper,
Or truth one altar built to her;
Where'er a human eye is weeping

O'er wrongs which Earth's sad children knowWhere'er a single heart is keeping

Its prayerful watch with human woe: Thence let them come, and greet each other, And know in each, a friend and brother!

Yes, let them come! from each green vale
Where England's old baronial halls
Still bear upon their storied walls
The grim crusader's rusted mail,
Battered by Paynim spear and brand
On Malta's rock or Syria's sand!
And mouldering pennon-staves once set
Within the soil of Palestine,

By Jordan and Genessaret;

Or, borne with England's battle line,
O'er Acre's shattered turrets stooping,
Or, 'midst the camp their banners drooping,

With dews from hallowed Hermon wet, A holier summons now is given

Than that gray hermit's voice of old,
Which unto all the winds of heaven
The banners of the Cross unrolled!
Not for the long deserted shrine,—
Not for the dull unconscious sod,
Which tells not by one lingering sign
That there the hope of Israel trod ;-
But for that TRUTH, for which alone
In pilgrim eyes are sanctified

The garden moss, the mountain stone,
Whereon his holy sandals pressed—
The fountain which his lip hath blessed-
Whate'er hath touched his garment's hem
At Bethany or Bethlehem,

Or Jordan's river side.

For FREEDOM, in the name of Him

Who came to raise Earth's drooping poor,
To break the chain from every limb-
The bolt from every prison door!

For these, o'er all the earth hath passed
An ever-deepening trumpet blast,

As if an angel's breath had lent

Its vigor to the instrument.

And Wales, from Snowden's mountain wall, Shall startle at that thrilling call,

As if she heard her bards again ; And Erin's "harp on Tara's wall” Give out its ancient strain, Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withalThe melody which Erin loves, When o'er that harp, mid bursts of gladness And slogan cries and lyke-wake sadness, The hand of her O'Connell moves! Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill, And mountain hold, and heathery hill, Shall catch and echo back the note,

As if she heard upon her air

Once more her Cameronian's prayer
And sorg of Freedom float.
And cheering echoes shall reply
From each remote dependency,
Where Britain's mighty sway is known,
In tropic sea or frozen zone;
Where'er her sunset flag is furling,
Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curling;
From Indian Bengal's groves of palm
And rosy fields and gales of balm,
Where Eastern pomp and power are rolled
Through regal Ava's gates of gold;
And from the lakes and ancient woods
And dim Canadian solitudes,

Whence, sternly from her rocky throne,
Queen of the North, Quebec looks down;
And from those bright and ransomed Isles
Where all unwonted Freedom smiles,
And the dark laborer still retains
The scar of slavery's broken chains!

From the hoar Alps, which sentinel
The gateways of the land of Tell,
Where morning's keen and earliest glance
On Jura's rocky wall is thrown,

And from the olive bowers of France

And vine groves garlanding the Rhone,"Friends of the Blacks," as true and tried As those who stood by Oge's side, And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong, Shall gather at that summons strong— Broglie, Passy, and him whose song Breathed over Syria's holy sod, And in the paths which Jesus trod, And murmured midst the hills which hem

Crownless and sad Jerusalem,

Hath echoes wheresoe'er the tone
Of Israel's prophet-lyre is known.

Still let them come-from Quito's walls,
And from the Oronoco's tide,
From Lima's Inca-haunted halls,
From Santa Fe and Yucatan,—

Men who by swart Guerrero's side
Proclaimed the deathless RIGHTS OF MAN,
Broke every bond and fetter off,
And hailed in every sable serf
A free and brother Mexican!
Chiefs who across the Andes' chain

Have followed Freedom's flowing pennon,
And seen on Junin's fearful plain,
Glare o'er the broken ranks of Spain,
The fire-burst of Bolivar's cannon!
And Hayti, from her mountain land,
Shall send the sons of those who hurled
Defiance from her blazing strand-
The war-gage from her Petion's hand,
Alone against a hostile world.

Nor all unmindful, thou, the while,
Land of the dark and mystic Nile!—
Thy Moslem mercy yet may shame
All tyrants of a Christian name-
When in the shade of Gezeh's pile,
Or, where from Abyssinian hills
El Gerek's upper fountain fills,
Or where from mountains of the Moon
El Abiad bears his watery boon,
Where'er thy lotus blossoms swim

Within their ancient hallowed waters--
Where'er is heard the Coptic hymn,
Or song of Nubia's sable daughters,—
The curse of SLAVERY and the crime,
Thy bequest from remotest time,
At thy dark Mehemet's decree
For evermore shall pass from thee;
And chains forsake each captive's limb
Of all those tribes, whose hills around

Have echoed back the cymbal sound
And victor horn of Ibrahim.

And thou whose glory and whose crime
To earth's remotest bound and clime,
In mingled tones of awe and scorn,
The echoes of a world have borne,
My country! glorious at thy birth,
A day-star flashing brightly forth-
The herald-sign of Freedom's dawn !
Oh! who could dream that saw thee then,
And watched thy rising from afar,
That vapors from oppression's fen

Would cloud the upward tending star?
Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which heard,
Awe-struck, the shout which hailed thy dawning,
Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and king,
To mock thee with their welcoming,

Like Hades when her thrones were stirred To greet the down-cast Star of Morning! "Aha! and art thou fallen thus ?

Art THOU become as one of us?"

Land of my fathers!-there will stand,
Amidst that world-assembled band,
Those owning thy maternal claim
Unweakened by thy crime and shame,-
The sad reprovers of thy wrong-
The children thou hast spurned so long.
Still with affection's fondest yearning
To their unnatural mother turning.
No traitors they !—but tried and leal,
Whose own is but thy general weal,
Still blending with the patriot's zeal
The Christian's love for human kind,
To caste and climate unconfined.

A holy gathering!-peaceful all-
No threat of war on savage call