In words of cheer and bugle blow Their breath upon the darkness passed.

A mighty host, on either hand,

Stood waiting for the dawn of day To crush like reeds our feeble band; The morn has come, and where are they?

Troop after troop their line forsakes; With peace-white banners waving free,

And from our own the glad shout breaks,
Of Freedom and Fraternity!

Like mist before the growing light,
The hostile cohorts melt away;
Our frowning foemen of the night
Are brothers at the dawn of day!

As unto these repentant ones

We open wide our toil-worn ranks, Along our line a murmur runs

Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks.

Sound for the onset ! - Blast on blast! Till Slavery's minions cower and quail :

Dre charge of fire shall drive them fast Like chaff before our Northern gale! O prisoners in your house of pain, Dumb, toiling millions, bound and sold,

Look! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain,

The Lord's delivering hand behold!

Above the tyrant's pride of power,
His iron gates and guarded wall,
The bolts which shattered Shinar's
tower

Hang, smoking, for a fiercer fall.

Awake! awake! my Fatherland!

It is thy Northern light that shines; This stirring march of Freedom's band The storm-song ofthy mountain pines. Wake, dwellers where the day expires! And hear, in winds that sweep your lakes

And fan your prairies' roaring fires,

The signal-call that Freedom makes !

93

TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.

GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest! The flowers of Eden round thee blowing,

And on thine ear the murmurs blest
Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives
To all the earth its healing leaves
In the white robe of angels clad,

And wandering by that sacred river, Whose streams of holiness make glad The city of our God forever!

Gentlest of spirits!—not for thee

Our tears are shed, our sighs are given. Why mourn to know thou art a free Partaker of the joys of Heaven? Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death; And beautiful as sky and earth,

When autumn's sun is downward going

The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing!

But woe for us! who linger still

With feebler strength and hearts less lowly,

And minds less steadfast to the will

Of Him whose every work is holy.
For not like thine, is crucified
The spirit of our human pride:
And at the bondman's tale of woe,

And for the outcast and forsaken, Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, Our weaker sympathies awaken.

Darkly upon our struggling way Thestorm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey,

Our watch amidst the darkness keep ing,

O for that hidden strength which can
Nerve unto death the inner man !
O for thy spirit, tried and true,

And constant in the hour of trial,
Prepared to suffer, or to do,

In meekness and in self-denial.

O for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining,

By man deserted and reviled,
Yet faithful to its trust remaining.
Still prompt and resolute to save
From scourge and chain the hunted slave;
Unwavering in the Truth's defence,

Even where the fires of Hate were
burning,

The unquailing eye of innocence

Alone upon the oppressor turning !

O loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee.

The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee;

And grateful tears, like summer rain, Quickened its dying grass again! And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine,

Shall come the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine

Recalling memories sweet and holy !

O for the death the righteous die!

An end, like autumn's day declining, On human hearts, as on the sky,

With holier, tenderer beauty shining; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening Heaven! As if that pure and blessed light,

From off the Eternal altar flowing, Were bathing, in its upward flight, The spirit to its worship going!

TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN. 1846.

Is this thy voice, whose treble notes of fear

Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear,

Actæon-like, the bay of thine own hounds,

Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds?

Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand,

With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack,

To hunt down Freedom in her chosen

land,

Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back,

These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track?

Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue,

Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung,

O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man?

How stood'st thou then, thy feet ou Freedom planting,

And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through th south windows slanting,

Crimson as blood, the beams of th: Lone Star!

The Fates are just; they give us b

Called demons up his water-jars to fill: Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, ke pouring still,

In vain with spell and charm the wi ard wrought,

Faster and faster were the bucke brought,

Higher and higher rose the flood aroun Till the fiends clapped their han above their master drowned ! So, Carolinian, it may prove with the, For God still overrules man's scheme, and takes

Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes

The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be,

That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door

Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in,

From out the blood and fire, the wrorg

and sin,

Of the stormed city and the ghastly plain,

Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody

rain,

A myriad-handed Aztec host may pour, And swarthy South with pallid North combine

Back on thyself to turn thy dark design.

LINES,

66

WRITTEN ON THE ADOPTION OF PINCKNEY'S RESOLUTIONS, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND THE PASSAGE OF CALHOUN'S BILL FOR EXCLUDING PAPERS WRITTEN OR PRINTED, TOUCHING THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY FROM THE U. S. POST-OFFICE," IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit

Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone?

Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone?

Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us,

Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low,

That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us

To silence now?

93

"Thou, who to thy Church hast given
Keys alike, of hell and heaven,
Make our word and witness sure,
Let the curse we speak endure!"
Silent, while that curse was said,
Every bare and listening head
Bowed in reverent awe, and then
All the people said, Amen!

Seven times the bells have tolled,
For the centuries gray and old,
Since that stoled and mitred band
Cursed the tyrants of their land.

Since the priesthood, like a tower,
Stood between the poor and power:
And the wronged and trodden down
Blessed the abbot's shaven crown.

Gone, thank God, their wizard spell,
Lost, their keys of heaven and hell;
Yet I sigh for men as bold
As those bearded priests of old.

Now, too oft the priesthood wait
At the threshold of the state,
Waiting for the beck and nod
Of its power as law and God.

Fraud exults, while solemn words
Sanctify his stolen hoards;
Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips
Bless his manacles and whips.