Lo! threescore years have passed; and where
The Gallic timbrel stirred the air,

With Northern drum-roll, and the clear,
Wild horn-blow of the mountaineer,
While Britain grounded on that plain
The arms she might not lift again,
As abject as in that old day
The slave still toils his life away.

O, fields still green and fresh in story,
Old days of pride, old names of glory,
Old marvels of the tongue and pen,

Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men,
Ye spared the wrong; and over all
Behold the avenging shadow fall!

Your world-wide honor stained with shame, –
Your freedom's self a hollow name!

Where's now the flag of that old war?

Where flows its stripe Where burns its star?

Bear witness, Palo Alto's day,

Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey,

Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak,

Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak:

Symbol of terror and despair,

Of chains and slaves, go seek it there!

Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks !
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks!
Brave sport to see the fledgling born
Of Freedom by its parent torn!
Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell,
Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell:
With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled,
What of the New World fears the Old ?

THE WATCHERS.

43

BE

THE WATCHERS.

ESIDE a stricken field I stood;

On the torn turf, on grass and wood, Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other's brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

"How long!

I knew the voice of Peace,

"Is there no respite ?- no release ?

When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

"O Lord, how long! - One human soul

Is more than any parchment scroll,

Or any flag thy winds unroll.

"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave? How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,

Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?

"O brother! if thine eye can see, Tell how and when the end shall be, What hope remains for thee and me.

Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won.

"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.

"The moor of Marston felt my tread, Through Jersey snows the march I led, My voice Magenta's charges sped.

THE WATCHERS.

"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!"

45

LINES,

WRITTEN ON THE ADOPTION OF PINCKNEY'S RESOLUTIONS, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND THE PASSAGE OF CALHOUN'S (6 BILL FOR EXCLUDING PAPERS, WRITTEN OR PRINTED, TOUCHING THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY FROM THE U. S. POST-OFFICE," IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

ME

EN of the North-land! where 's the manly spirit
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone ?

Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit

Their names alone?

Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us,

Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now!

Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging,

In God's name, let us speak while there is time! Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, Silence is crime!

What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors
Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter,
For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us,
God and our charter ?

Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters,
Here the false jurist human rights deny,
And, in the church, their proud and skilled abettors
Make truth a lie ?

Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible,

To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood?

And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel

Both man and God?