And this, too, sanctioned by the men,
Vested with power to shield the right,
And throw each vile and robber den
Wide open to the light.

Yet shame upon them!-there they sit,
Men of the North, subdued and still;
Meek, pliant poltroons, only fit
To work a master's will.

Sold-bargained off for Southern votes—
A passive herd of Northern mules,
Just braying through their purchased throats
Whate'er their owner rules.

And he 35—the basest of the base-
The vilest of the vile-whose name,
Embalmed in infinite disgrace,

Is deathless in its shame!

A tool-to bolt the people's door
Against the people clamoring there,-
An ass-to trample on their floor
A people's right of prayer!

Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast,
Self-pilloried to the public view-
A mark for every passing blast
Of scorn to whistle through;

There let him hang, and hear the boast
Of Southrons o'er their pliant tool--
A St. Stylites on his post,

"Sacred to ridicule !"

Look we at home !-our noble hall,
To Freedom's holy purpose given,
Now rears its black and ruined wall,
Beneath the wintry heaven-

Telling the story of its doom

The fiendish mob-the prostrate law-
The fiery jet through midnight's gloom,
Our gazing thousands saw.

Look to our State-the poor man's right
Torn from him:-and the sons of those
Whose blood in Freedom's sternest fight
Sprinkled the Jersey snows,

Outlawed within the land of Penn,
That Slavery's guilty fears might cease,
And those whom God created men,
Toil on as brutes in peace.

Yet o'er the blackness of the storm,
A bow of promise bends on high,
And gleams of sunshine, soft and warm,
Break through our clouded sky.

East, West, and North, the shout is heard,
Of freemen rising for the right:
Each valley hath its rallying word-
Each hill its signal light.

O'er Massachusetts' rocks of grey,

The strengthening light of freedom shines, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay

And Vermont's snow-hung pines!

From Hudson's frowning palisades
To Alleghany's laurelled crest,

O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades,
It shines upon the West.

Speed on the light to those who dwell
In Slavery's land of woe and sin,
And through the blackness of that hell,
Let Heaven's own light break in.

So shall the Southern conscience quake,
Before that light poured full and strong,
So shall the Southern heart awake
To all the bondman's wrong.

And from that rich and sunny land
The song of grateful millions rise,
Like that of Israel's ransomed band
Beneath Arabia's skies:

And all who now are bound beneath
Our banner's shade-our eagle's wing,
From Slavery's night of moral death
To light and life shall spring.

Broken the bondman's chain-and gone
The master's guilt, and hate, and fear,
And unto both alike shall dawn,
A New and Happy Year.

1839.

MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

[WRITTEN on reading an account of the proceedings of the citi zens of Norfolk, Va., in reference to GEORGE LATIMER, the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Massachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro SOMERSET in England, in 1772.]

THE blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,

Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay :

No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's

peal,

Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our high

ways go

Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the

snow;

And to the land breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,

A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high,

Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky;

Yet, not one brown, hard hand forgoes its honest labor here

No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank

Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white aud dank;

Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man

The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms,

Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms;

Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,

They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day

When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's

How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachu

setts men

Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call

Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall?

When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath

Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of "LIBERTY OR DEATH!"

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved

False to their fathers' memory-false to the faith they loved,

If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter

spurn,

Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell

Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell

We gather, at your summons, above our fathers'

graves,

From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts

bow;

The spirit of her early time is with her even now; Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool,

She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!