Now, looking o'er the frozen North For one like him in word and act, To call her old, free spirit forth, And give her faith the life of fact, To break her party bonds of shame, And labor with the zeal of him To make the Democratic name Of Liberty the synonyme, We sweep the land from hill to strand, We seek the strong, the wise, the brave, And, sad of heart, return to stand In silence by a new-made grave! There, where his breezy hills of home Look out upon his sail-white seas, The sounds of winds and waters come, And shape themselves to words like these : Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power Was lent to Party over-long, Heard the still whisper at the hour He set his foot on Party wrong? « The human life that closed so well No lapse of folly now can stain ; The lips whence Freedom's protest fell No meaner thought can now profane. “Mightier than living voice his grave That lofty protest utters o'er; Through roaring wind and smiting wave It speaks his hate of wrong once more. “ Men of the North! your weak regret Is wasted here; arise and pay To freedom and to him your debt, By following where he led the way!” JO OHN BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE spake on his dying day : “I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, With her children from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!” John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die ; mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child ! fell apart; The shadows of his stormy life that mom THE RENDITION. I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, I saw an earnest look beseech, Marched handcuffed down that sworded street, The solid earth beneath my feet I felt & sense of bitter loss, Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, And loathing fear, as if my path All generous confidence and trust, Sank smothering in that deep disgust And home's green quiet, hiding all, Fell sudden darkness, like the fall Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, Lend this dead air a breeze of health, Rise awful in thy strength,” I said ; Ah, me! I spake but to the dead; I stood upon her grave! 6th mo., 1854. LINES, ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND LIB ERTIES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT. I SAID I stood upon thy grave, My Mother State, when last the moon And, scattering ashes on my head, I wore, undreaming of relief, The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. And thou hast risen with the spring ! Are round about thy children flung, A lioness that guards her young ! But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from its light. Southward the baffled robber's track Henceforth runs only ; hereaway, The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. His first low howl shall downward draw The thunder of thy righteous law. But, acting on the wiser plan, Thou ’rt grown conservative of man. Dream-painted on the sightless eyes Of him who sang of Paradise, In virtue as in stature great, Embodied in a Christian State. Forbearing long, yet standing fast, Shalt win their grateful thanks at last ; When North and South shall strive no more, And all their feuds and fears be lost In Freedom's holy Pentecost. 6th mo., 1855. |