MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains. Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, By watching round the shambles where Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves We wash our hands forever of your sin A voice from lips whereon the coal from In all our sunny valleys, on every wind- And when the prowling man-thief came How, through the free lips of the son, A hundred thousand right arms were A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply; Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang, And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang! From 63 Norfolk's ancient villages, from To where Nantucket feels the arms of But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given For freedom and humanity is registered The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of No slave-hunt in our borders, - no pirate no slave Where, midst the sound of rushing feet And curses on the night-air flung, That pleading voice rose calm and sweet From woman's earnest tongue; And Riot turned his scowling glance, Awed, from her tranquil countenance ! That temple now in ruin lies ! The fire-stain on its shattered wall, But from that ruin, as of old, The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, And from their ashes white and cold A voice which slavery cannot kill And even this relic from thy shrine, And, grasping it, methinks I feel 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, Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the 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! - - It is coming, it is nigh! Clang the bells in all your spires; From Wachuset, lone and bleak, Freedom's soil hath only place Perish party, - perish clan ; Like that angel's voice sublime, With one heart and with one mouth, "What though Issachar be strong! Ye may load his back with wrong Overmuch and over long : "Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done. "Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strain Link by link shall snap in twain. "Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Bind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope! "Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze. "Take your land of sun and bloom; Only leave to Freedom room For her plough, and forge, and loom ; "Take your slavery-blackened vales; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails. "Boldly, or with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; Break the Union's mighty heart; "Work the ruin, if ye will; Pluck upon your heads an ill Which shall grow and deepen still. "With your bondman's right arm bare, "Onward with your fell design; Have they wronged us? Let us then TO MASSACHUSETTS. WHAT though around thee blazes Give heaven the light of thine ! Still, let the land be shaken Why, stand with that alone! God holds the right side up! But when, with thine uniting, Thy fire-words on the cloud; Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view? O, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true! Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom! Speed them onward far and fast! Over hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast! Lo! the Empire State is shaking On they come, - the free battalions! |