"But now, through weary day and night, I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.
"On either side my foe they own:
One guards through love his ghastly throne, And one through fear to reverence grown.
"Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed, By open foes, or those afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid?
"Why watch to see who win or fall ?— I shake the dust against them all,
I leave them to their senseless brawl."
"Nay," Peace implored : " yet longer wait; The doom is near, the stake is great: God knoweth if it be too late.
"Still wait and watch; the way prepare Where I with folded wings of prayer May follow, weaponless and bare."
"Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied, "Too late!" its mournful echo sighed, In low lament the answer died.
A rustling as of wings in flight, An upward gleam of lessening white, So passed the vision, sound and sight.
But round me, like a silver bell Rung down the listening sky to tell Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
"Still hope and trust," it sang; "the rod Must fall, the wine-press must be trod, But all is possible with God!"
You flung your taunt across the wave; We bore it as became us, Well knowing that the fettered slave Left friendly lips no option save To pity or to blame us.
You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will, Not lack of power," you told us: We showed our free-state records; still You mocked, confounding good and ill, Slave-haters and slaveholders.
We struck at Slavery; to the verge Of power and means we checked it; Lo!-presto, change! its claims you urge, Send greetings to it o'er the surge, And comfort and protect it.
But yesterday you scarce could shake, In slave-abhorring rigor,
Our Northern palms for conscience' sake: To-day you clasp the hands that ache With "walloping the nigger!" 41
O Englishmen !—in hope and creed, In blood and tongue our brothers! We too are heirs of Runnymede; And Shakspeare's fame and Cromwell's deed Are not alone our mother's.
“Thicker than water," in one rill Through centuries of story
Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still We share with you its good and ill, The shadow and the glory.
Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave Nor length of years can part us: Your right is ours to shrine and grave, The common freehold of the brave, The gift of saints and martyrs.
Our very sins and follies teach Our kindred frail and human: We carp at faults with bitter speech, The while for one unshared by each, We have a score in common.
We bowed the heart, if not the knee, To England's Queen, God bless her! We praised you when your slaves went free: We seek to unchain ours. Will ye
Join hands with the oppressor?
And is it Christian England cheers The bruiser, not the bruised? And must she run, despite the tears And prayers of eighteen hundred years, Amuck in Slavery's crusade ?
O black disgrace! O shame and loss Too deep for tongue to phrase on! Tear from your flag its holy cross, And in your van of battle toss The pirate's skull-bone blazon!
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862.
WHEN first I saw our banner wave Above the nation's council-hall, I heard beneath its marble wall The clanking fetters of the slave!
In the foul market-place I stood,
And saw the Christian mother sold, And childhood with its locks of gold, Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
I shut my eyes, I held my breath,
And, smothering down the wrath and shame That set my Northern blood aflame, Stood silent-where to speak was death.
Beside me gloomed the prison-cell Where wasted one in slow decline For uttering simple words of mine, And loving freedom all too well.
The flag that floated from the dome Flapped menace in the morning air; I stood a perilled stranger where The human broker made his home.
For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword And Law their threefold sanction gave, And to the quarry of the slave Went hawking with our symbol-bird.
On the oppressor's side was power; And yet I knew that every wrong, However old, however strong, But waited God's avenging hour.
I knew that truth would crush the lie,- Somehow, sometime, the end would be; Yet scarcely dared I hope to see The triumph with my mortal eye.
But now I see it! In the sun
A free flag floats from yonder dome, And at the nation's hearth and home The justice long delayed is done.
Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, The message of deliverance comes, But heralded by roll of drums On waves of battle-troubled air!—
Midst sounds that madden and appall, The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew! The harp of David melting through The demon-agonies of Saul!
Not as we hoped ;-but what are we? Above our broken dreams and plans God lays, with wiser hand than man's, The corner-stones of liberty.
I cavil not with Him: the voice That freedom's blessed gospel tells Is sweet to me as silver bells, Rejoicing!-yea, I will rejoice!
Dear friends still toiling in the sun,- Ye dearer ones who, gone before, Are watching from the eternal shore The slow work by your hands begun,―
Rejoice with me! The chastening rod Blossoms with love; the furnace heat Grows cool beneath His blessed feet Whose form is as the Son of God!
Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs Are sweetened; on our ground of grief Rise day by day in strong relief The prophecies of better things.
Rejoice in hope! The day and night Are one with God, and one with them Who see by faith the cloudy hem Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light!
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