STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame, Her patience shall not fail! A heathen hand might deal Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years: But her low, broken prayer and nightly tears, Ye neither heed nor feel. 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, And to her darkened mind alone impart One stern command, · -OBEY! So shalt thou deftly raise The market price of human flesh; and while On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile, Thy church shall praise. Grave, reverend men shall tell From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, While in that vile South Sodom first and best, Thy poor disciples sell. O, shame! the Moslem thrall, Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels, While turning to the sacred Kebla feels His fetters break and fall, Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne Their inmates into day; But our poor slave in vain Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes, Its rites will only swell his market price, And rivet on his chain. And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver's whip? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak-but as our masters please? Shall outraged Nature cease to feel? Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow? Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel, The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow, Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth, our Country, and the Slave? Of human skulls that shrine was made, Round which the priests of Mexico Before their loathsome idol prayed; Is Freedom's altar fashioned so? And must we yield to Freedom's God. As offering meet, the negro's blood? can! Still pouring on unwilling ears What shall we guard our neighbor still, While woman shrieks beneath his rod, And while he tramples down at will The image of a common God! And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, They cater to tyrants? - They rivet the chain, Which their fathers smote off, on the negro again? No, never!-one voice, like the sound in the cloud, When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud, Wherever the foot of the freeman hath pressed From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the West, On the South-going breezes shall deepen and grow Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble below! The voice of a PEOPLE, · uprisen, — awake, Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at stake, Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from each height, "OUR COUNTRY AND LIBERTY!GOD FOR THE RIGHT!" LINES. That, in their spirit, dark and stern, And from your precincts shut the light Of Freedom's day around ye dawning; If when an earthquake voice of power, And signs in earth and heaven, are showing That forth, in its appointed hour, Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, In glory and in strength are waking! When for the sighing of the poor, And for the needy, God hath risen, And chains are breaking, and a door Is opening for the souls in prison ! If then ye would, with puny hands, Arrest the very work of Heaven, And bind anew the evil bands Which God's right arm of power hath riven, What marvel that, in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of your dominion? A glorious remnant linger yet, Whose lips are wet at Freedom's The coming of whose welcome feet Whose peace is as a gentle river! But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale Of Carolina's high-souled daughters, Which echoes here the mournful wail Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, Close while ye may the public ear, — With malice vex, with slander wound them, The pure and good shall throng to hear, And tried and manly hearts surround them. O, ever may the power which led With wisdom and with strength from With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand, And Deborah's song, for triumph given ! And what are ye who strive with God Against the ark of his salvation, Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, With blessings for a dying nation? What, but the stubble and the hay To perish, even as flax consuming, With all that bars his glorious way, Before the brightness of his coming? And thou, sad Angel, who so long Hast waited for the glorious token, That Earth from all her bonds of wrong To liberty and light has broken, — Angel of Freedom! soon to thee The sounding trumpet shall be given, And over Earth's full jubilee Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven! LINES, WRITTEN FOR THE MEETING OF THE O THOU, whose presence went before A nation's song ascends to Heaven, Most Holy Father! unto thee May not our humble prayer be given! |