I love thee with a brother's love,

I feel my pulses thrill,

To mark thy spirit soar above
The cloud of human ill.

My heart hath leaped to answer thine,
And echo back thy words,
As leaps the warrior's at the shine
And flash of kindred swords !

They tell me thou art rash and vain
A searcher after fame;

That thou art striving but to gain

A long-enduring name;

That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand
And steeled the Afric's heart,
To shake aloft his vengeful brand,
And rend his chain apart.

Have I not known thee well, and read
Thy mighty purpose long?

And watched the trials which have made
Thy human spirit strong?
And shall the slanderer's demon breath
Avail with one like me,

To dim the sunshine of my faith
And earnest trust in thee?

Go on, the dagger's point may glare
Amid thy pathway's gloom,
The fate which sternly threatens there
Is glorious martyrdom !

Then onward with a martyr's zeal;
And wait thy sure reward

When man to man no more shall kneel,
And God alone be Lord!

1833.

SONG OF THE FREE.

PRIDE of New England!

Soul of our fathers!

Shrink we all craven-like,
When the storm gathers?
What though the tempest be
Over us lowering,

Where's the New-Englander
Shamefully cowering?
Graves green and holy
Around us are lying, -
Free were the sleepers all,
Living and dying!
Back with the Southerner's
Padlocks and scourges !

let him fetter down Ocean's free surges !

Go,

Go,

let him silence
Winds, clouds, and waters,
Never New England's own
Free sons and daughters!
Free as our rivers are
Ocean-ward going, -
Free as the breezes are
Over us blowing.

Up to our altars, then,
Haste we, and summon
Courage and loveliness,

Manhood and woman!
Deep let our pledges be:
Freedom forever!
Truce with oppression,
Never, oh! never!
By our own birthright-gift,
Granted of Heaven,
Freedom for heart and lip,
Be the pledge given !

The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer,

The drunk and the sober, ride merrily

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The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still,

Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill.

Haste,-alms for our hunters! the hunted once more

Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore:

What right have they here in the home of the white,

Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right?

Ho!-alms for the hunters! or never again

Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men !

ALMS,

-ALMS for our hunters! why
will
ye delay,

When their pride and their glory are melting away?

The parson has turned; for, on charge of his own,

Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? The politic statesman looks back with a sigh,

There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye.

O, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail,

And the head of his steed take the place of the tail.

O, haste, ere he leave us ! for who will ride then,

For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men?

1835.

CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.

[In the report of the celebrated proslavery meeting in Charleston, S. C., on the 4th of the 9th month, 1835, published in the Courier of that city, it is stated, "The CLERGY of all denominations attended in a body, LENDING THEIR SANCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene!"]

JUST God!- and these are they Who minister at thine altar, God of Right!

Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay

On Israel's Ark of light!

What! preach and kidnap men? Give thanks,-and rob thy own afflicted poor?

Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door?

What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and save The homeless and the outcast, - fettering down

The tasked and plundered slave !

Pilate and Herod, friends! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine !

Just God and holy! is that church, which

lends

Strength to the spoiler, thine?

Paid hypocrites, who turn Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book Of those high words of truth which search and burn

In warning and rebuke;

Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord

That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,

Ye pile your own full board.

How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,

And in thy name, for robbery and wrong

At thy own altars pray?

Is not thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite?

Shall not the living God of all the earth, And heaven above, do right?

Woe, then, to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down!

To all who plunder from the immortal mind

Its bright and glorious crown!

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

Ne 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.

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