THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE. 13 A THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE. CHRISTIAN! going, gone! Who bids for God's own image? - for his grace Which that poor victim of the market-place Hath in her suffering won? My God! can such things be? Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done In that sad victim, then, Child of thy pitying love, I see Thee stand- A Christian up for sale! Wet with her blood your whips - o'ertask her frame, A heathen hand might deal Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years, Con well thy lesson o'er, Thou prudent teacher tell the toiling slave No dangerous tale of Him who came to save The outcast and the poor. But wisely shut the ray Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart, One stern command - OBEY! So shalt thou deftly raise The market price of human flesh; and while Grave, reverend men shall tell From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall, Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn But our poor slave in vain Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes- God of all right! how long Shall priestly robbers at thine altar stand, Oh, from the fields of cane, From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cell — From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain, Hoarse, horrible, and strong, Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, HOW LONG, O GOD, HOW LONG? STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. 15 STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. S this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Shall outraged Nature cease to feel? Of human skulls that shrine was made, Is Freedom's altar fashioned so? Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb? No- by each spot of haunted ground, Where Freedom weeps her children's fall By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound By Griswold's stained and shattered wall By Warren's ghost- by Langdon's shade By all the memories of our dead! By their enlarging souls, which burst Within our inmost bosoms, yet No-guided by our country's laws, For truth, and right, and suffering man, What! shall we guard our neighbor still, The image of a common God! Shall watch and ward be round him set, And shall we know and share with him The danger and the growing shame ? And see our Freedom's light grow dim, Which should have filled the world with flame? And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, A world's reproach around us burn? Is 't not enough that this is borne ? And asks our haughty neighbor more? Clank round the Yankee farmer's door? STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. Must he be told his freedom stands On Slavery's dark foundations strong Its life its soul, from slavery drawn? Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell! Rail on, then, "brethren of the South" No fetter on the Yankee's press! 17 |