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And Riot turned his scowling glance,
Awed, from her tranquil countenance !

That temple now in ruin lies!———
The fire-stain on its shattered wall,
And open to the changing skies
Its black and roofless hall,
It stands before a nation's sight,
A gravestone over buried Right!

But from that ruin, as of old,

The fire-scorched stones themselves are
crying,

And from their ashes white and cold
Its timbers are replying!

A voice which slavery cannot kill
Speaks from the crumbling arches still!

And even this relic from thy shrine,
Oh, holy Freedom!-hath to me
A potent power, a voice and sign
To testify of thee;

And, grasping it, methinks I feel
A deeper faith, a stronger zeal.

And not unlike that mystic rod,

Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave,
Which opened, in the strength of God,
A pathway for the slave,

It yet may point the bondman's way,
And turn the spoiler from his prey.

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When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the iron was withdrawn,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!

As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back from Syrian wars

The scars of Arab lances, and of Paynim scime

tars,

The pallor of the prison and the shackle's crimson

span,

So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man!

He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's

grave,

Thou for his living presence in the bound and bleeding slave;.

He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God!

For, while the jurist sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung,

From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of

slavery wrung,

And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each Goddeserted shrine,

Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine

While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt,

And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt;

Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadows dim,

And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him!

In thy lone and long night watches, sky above and wave below,

Thou did'st learn a higher wisdom than the babbling school-men know;

God's stars and silence taught thee, as his angels only can,

That the one, sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven, is Man!

That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed,

In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need;

But woe to him who crushes the SOUL with chain and rod,

And herds with lower natures the awful form of

God!

Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave!

Its branded palm shall prophesy, "SALVATION TO THE SLAVE!”

Hold

up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel

His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.

Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air—

Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God look there!

Take it henceforth for your standard-like the Bruce's heart of yore,

In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hard be seen before!

And the tyrants of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign,

When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line:

Woe to the State-gorged leeches, and the Church's locust band,

When they look from slavery's ramparts on the coming of that hand!

TEXAS.

VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND.

Up the hill-side, down the glen,
Rouse the sleeping citizen;
Summon out the might of men!

Like a lion growling low—
Like a night-storm rising slow-
Like the tread of unseen foe-

It is coming-it is nigh!

Stand your homes and altars by;
On your own free thresholds die.

Clang the bells in all your spires;
On the grey hills of your sires
Fling to heaven your signal fires.

From Wachuset, lone and bleak,
Unto Berkshire's tallest peak,
Let the flame-tongued heralds speak.

O! for God and duty stand,
Heart to heart and hand to hand,
Round the old graves of the land.

Whoso shrinks or falters now,
Whoso to the yoke would bow,
Brand the craven on his brow!

Freedom's soil hath only place
For a free and fearless race-
None for traitors false and base.

Perish party-perish clan;
Strike together while ye can,
Like the arm of one strong man.

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