The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine Americans, forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats of hardihood and daring which have in all ages attracted the admiration of the multitude. The higher and holier heroism of Christian self-denial and sacrifice, in the humble walks of private duty, is seldom so well appreciated.
NIGHT on the city of the Moor!On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore,On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knockThe narrow harbor-gates unlock,On corsair's galley, carack tall,And plundered Christian caraval!The sounds of Moslem life are still;No mule-bell tinkles down the hill;Stretched in the broad court of the khan,The dusty Bornou caravanLies heaped in slumber, beast and man;The Sheik is dreaming in his tent,His noisy Arab tongue o'erspent;The kiosk's glimmering lights are gone,The merchant with his wares withdrawn;Rough pillowed on some pirate breast,The dancing-girl has sunk to rest;And, save where measured footsteps fallAlong the Bashaw's guarded wall,Or where, like some bad dream, the JewCreeps stealthily his quarter through,Or counts with fear his golden heaps,The City of the Corsair sleeps.But where yon prison long and lowStands black against the pale star-glow,Chafed by the ceaseless wash of waves,There watch and pine the Christian slaves;Rough-bearded men, whose far-off wivesWear out with grief their lonely lives;And youth, still flashing from his eyesThe clear blue of New England skies,A treasured lock of whose soft hairNow wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer;Or, worn upon some maiden breast,Stirs with the loving heart's unrest.A bitter cup each life must drain,The groaning earth is cursed with pain,And, like the scroll the angel boreThe shuddering Hebrew seer before,O'erwrit alike, without, within,With all the woes which follow sin;But, bitterest of the ills beneathWhose load man totters down to death,Is that which plucks the regal crownOf Freedom from his forehead down,And snatches from his powerless handThe sceptred sign of self-command,Effacing with the chain and rodThe image and the seal of God;Till from his nature, day by day,The manly virtues fall away,And leave him naked, blind and mute,The godlike merging in the brute!Why mourn the quiet ones who dieBeneath affection's tender eye,Unto their household and their kinLike ripened corn-sheaves gathered in?O weeper, from that tranquil sod,That holy harvest-home of God,Turn to the quick and suffering, shedThy tears upon the living deadThank God above thy dear ones' graves,They sleep with Him, they are not slaves.What dark mass, down the mountain-sidesSwift-pouring, like a stream divides?A long, loose, straggling caravan,Camel and horse and armed man.The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'erIts grave of waters to the shore,Lights tip that mountain cavalcade,And gleams from gun and spear and bladeNear and more near! now o'er them fallsThe shadow of the city walls.Hark to the sentry's challenge, drownedIn the fierce trumpet's charging sound!The rush of men, the musket's peal,The short, sharp clang of meeting steel!Vain, Moslem, vain thy lifeblood pouredSo freely on thy foeman's sword!Not to the swift nor to the strongThe battles of the right belong;For he who strikes for Freedom wearsThe armor of the captive's prayers,And Nature proffers to his causeThe strength of her eternal laws;While he whose arm essays to bindAnd herd with common brutes his kindStrives evermore at fearful oddsWith Nature and the jealous gods,And dares the dread recoil which lateOr soon their right shall vindicate.'T is done, the horned crescent fallsThe star-flag flouts the broken wallsJoy to the captive husband! joyTo thy sick heart, O brown-locked boy!In sullen wrath the conquered MoorWide open flings your dungeon-door,And leaves ye free from cell and chain,The owners of yourselves again.Dark as his allies desert-born,Soiled with the battle's stain, and wornWith the long marches of his bandThrough hottest wastes of rock and sand,Scorched by the sun and furnace-breathOf the red desert's wind of death,With welcome words and grasping hands,The victor and deliverer stands!The tale is one of distant skies;The dust of half a century liesUpon it; yet its hero's nameStill lingers on the lips of Fame.Men speak the praise of him who gaveDeliverance to the Moorman's slave,Yet dare to brand with shame and crimeThe heroes of our land and time,—The self-forgetful ones, who stakeHome, name, and life for Freedom's sake.God mend his heart who cannot feelThe impulse of a holy zeal,And sees not, with his sordid eyes,The beauty of self-sacrificeThough in the sacred place he stands,Uplifting consecrated hands,Unworthy are his lips to tellOf Jesus' martyr-miracle,Or name aright that dread embraceOf suffering for a fallen race!1850.
This poem finds its justification in the readiness with which, even in the North, clergymen urged the prompt execution of the Fugitive Slave Law as a Christian duty, and defended the system of slavery as a Bible institution.
SCARCE had the solemn Sabbath-bellCeased quivering in the steeple,Scarce had the parson to his deskWalked stately through his people,When down the summer-shaded streetA wasted female figure,With dusky brow and naked feet,Came rushing wild and eager.She saw the white spire through the trees,She heard the sweet hymn swellingO pitying Christ! a refuge giveThat poor one in Thy dwelling!Like a scared fawn before the hounds,Right up the aisle she glided,While close behind her, whip in hand,A lank-haired hunter strided.She raised a keen and bitter cry,To Heaven and Earth appealing;Were manhood's generous pulses dead?Had woman's heart no feeling?A score of stout hands rose betweenThe hunter and the flying:Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyesFlashed tearful, yet defying."Who dares profane this house and day?"Cried out the angry pastor."Why, bless your soul, the wench's a slave,And I'm her lord and master!"I've law and gospel on my side,And who shall dare refuse me?"Down came the parson, bowing low,"My good sir, pray excuse me!"Of course I know your right divineTo own and work and whip her;Quick, deacon, throw that PolyglottBefore the wench, and trip her!"Plump dropped the holy tome, and o'erIts sacred pages stumbling,Bound hand and foot, a slave once more,The hapless wretch lay trembling.I saw the parson tie the knots,The while his flock addressing,The Scriptural claims of slaveryWith text on text impressing."Although," said he, "on Sabbath dayAll secular occupationsAre deadly sins, we must fulfilOur moral obligations:"And this commends itself as oneTo every conscience tender;As Paul sent back Onesimus,My Christian friends, we send her!"Shriek rose on shriek,—the Sabbath airHer wild cries tore asunder;I listened, with hushed breath, to hearGod answering with his thunder!All still! the very altar's clothHad smothered down her shrieking,And, dumb, she turned from face to face,For human pity seeking!I saw her dragged along the aisle,Her shackles harshly clanking;I heard the parson, over all,The Lord devoutly thanking!My brain took fire: "Is this," I cried,"The end of prayer and preaching?Then down with pulpit, down with priest,And give us Nature's teaching!"Foul shame and scorn be on ye allWho turn the good to evil,And steal the Bible, from the Lord,To give it to the Devil!"Than garbled text or parchment lawI own a statute higher;And God is true, though every bookAnd every man's a liar!"Just then I felt the deacon's handIn wrath my coattail seize on;I heard the priest cry, "Infidel!"The lawyer mutter, "Treason!"I started up,—where now were church,Slave, master, priest, and people?I only heard the supper-bell,Instead of clanging steeple.But, on the open window's sill,O'er which the white blooms drifted,The pages of a good old BookThe wind of summer lifted,And flower and vine, like angel wingsAround the Holy Mother,Waved softly there, as if God's truthAnd Mercy kissed each other.And freely from the cherry-boughAbove the casement swinging,With golden bosom to the sun,The oriole was singing.As bird and flower made plain of oldThe lesson of the Teacher,So now I heard the written WordInterpreted by Nature.For to my ear methought the breezeBore Freedom's blessed word on;Thus saith the Lord: Break every yoke,Undo the heavy burden1850.
This and the four following poems have special reference to that darkest hour in the aggression of slavery which preceded the dawn of a better day, when the conscience of the people was roused to action.
THE evil days have come, the poorAre made a prey;Bar up the hospitable door,Put out the fire-lights, point no moreThe wanderer's way.For Pity now is crime; the chainWhich binds our StatesIs melted at her hearth in twain,Is rusted by her tears' soft rainClose up her gates.Our Union, like a glacier stirredBy voice below,Or bell of kine, or wing of bird,A beggar's crust, a kindly wordMay overthrow!Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boastOur blood and name;Bursting its century-bolted frost,Each gray cairn on the Northman's coastCries out for shame!Oh for the open firmament,The prairie free,The desert hillside, cavern-rent,The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent,The Bushman's tree!Than web of Persian loom most rare,Or soft divan,Better the rough rock, bleak and bare,Or hollow tree, which man may shareWith suffering man.I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law,Let Love be dumb;Clasping her liberal hands in awe,Let sweet-lipped Charity withdrawFrom hearth and home."I hear another voice: "The poorAre thine to feed;Turn not the outcast from thy door,Nor give to bonds and wrong once moreWhom God hath freed."Dear Lord! between that law and TheeNo choice remains;Yet not untrue to man's decree,Though spurning its rewards, is heWho bears its pains.Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blastAnd threatening word;I read the lesson of the Past,That firm endurance wins at lastMore than the sword.O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thouSo calm and strong!Lend strength to weakness, teach us howThe sleepless eyes of God look throughThis night of wrong.1850.
In a foot-note of the Report of the Senate of Massachusetts on the case of the arrest and return to bondage of the fugitive slave Thomas Sims it is stated that—"It would have been impossible for the U. S. marshal thus successfully to have resisted the law of the State, without the assistance of the municipal authorities of Boston, and the countenance and support of a numerous, wealthy, and powerful body of citizens. It was in evidence that 1500 of the most wealthy and respectable citizens-merchants, bankers, and others—volunteered their services to aid the marshal on this occasion. . . . No watch was kept upon the doings of the marshal, and while the State officers slept, after the moon had gone down, in the darkest hour before daybreak, the accused was taken out of our jurisdiction by the armed police of the city of Boston."
THE moon has set: while yet the dawnBreaks cold and gray,Between the midnight and the mornBear off your prey!On, swift and still! the conscious streetIs panged and stirred;Tread light! that fall of serried feetThe dead have heard!The first drawn blood of Freedom's veinsGushed where ye tread;Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stainsBlush darkly red!Beneath the slowly waning starsAnd whitening day,What stern and awful presence barsThat sacred way?What faces frown upon ye, darkWith shame and pain?Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark?Is that young Vane?Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye onWith mocking cheer?Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson,And Gage are here!For ready mart or favoring blastThrough Moloch's fire,Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passedThe Tyrian sire.Ye make that ancient sacrificeOf Mail to Gain,Your traffic thrives, where Freedom dies,Beneath the chain.Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scornAnd hate, is near;How think ye freemen, mountain-born,The tale will hear?Thank God! our mother State can yetHer fame retrieve;To you and to your children letThe scandal cleave.Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press,Make gods of gold;Let honor, truth, and manlinessLike wares be sold.Your hoards are great, your walls are strong,But God is just;The gilded chambers built by wrongInvite the rust.What! know ye not the gains of CrimeAre dust and dross;Its ventures on the waves of timeForedoomed to loss!And still the Pilgrim State remainsWhat she hath been;Her inland hills, her seaward plains,Still nurture men!Nor wholly lost the fallen mart;Her olden bloodThrough many a free and generous heartStill pours its flood.That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet,Shall know no check,Till a free people's foot is setOn Slavery's neck.Even now, the peal of bell and gun,And hills aflame,Tell of the first great triumph wonIn Freedom's name. (10)The long night dies: the welcome grayOf dawn we see;Speed up the heavens thy perfect day,God of the free!1851.
Suggested by reading a state paper, wherein the higher law is invoked to sustain the lower one.
A Pious magistrate! sound his praise throughoutThe wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubtThat the long-wished millennium draweth nigh?Sin in high places has become devout,Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lieStraight up to Heaven, and calls it piety!The pirate, watching from his bloody deckThe weltering galleon, heavy with the goldOf Acapulco, holding death in checkWhile prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told;The robber, kneeling where the wayside crossOn dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread lossFrom his own carbine, glancing still abroadFor some new victim, offering thanks to God!Rome, listening at her altars to the cryOf midnight Murder, while her hounds of hellScour France, from baptized cannon and holy bellAnd thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high,Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky,"Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!"What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so blackAs ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he laysHis evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phraseAnd saintly posture, gives to God the praiseAnd honor of the monstrous progeny.What marvel, then, in our own time to seeHis old devices, smoothly acted o'er,—Official piety, locking fast the doorOf Hope against three million soups of men,—Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed,—and then,With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee,Whining a prayer for help to hide the key!1853.
On the 2d of June, 1854, Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, after being under arrest for ten days in the Boston Court House, was remanded to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act, and taken down State Street to a steamer chartered by the United States Government, under guard of United States troops and artillery, Massachusetts militia and Boston police. Public excitement ran high, a futile attempt to rescue Burns having been made during his confinement, and the streets were crowded with tens of thousands of people, of whom many came from other towns and cities of the State to witness the humiliating spectacle.
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,I saw an earnest look beseech,And rather by that look than speechMy neighbor told me all.And, as I thought of LibertyMarched handcuffed down that sworded street,The solid earth beneath my feetReeled fluid as the sea.I felt a sense of bitter loss,—Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,And loathing fear, as if my pathA serpent stretched across.All love of home, all pride of place,All generous confidence and trust,Sank smothering in that deep disgustAnd anguish of disgrace.Down on my native hills of June,And home's green quiet, hiding all,Fell sudden darkness like the fallOf midnight upon noon.And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,Hoarse-shouting in the ear of GodThe blasphemy of wrong."O Mother, from thy memories proud,Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth,Lend this dead air a breeze of health,And smite with stars this cloud."Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,Rise awful in thy strength," I said;Ah me! I spake but to the dead;I stood upon her grave!6th mo., 1854.
On the passage of the bill to protect the rights and liberties of the people of the State against the Fugitive Slave Act.
I SAID I stood upon thy grave,My Mother State, when last the moonOf blossoms clomb the skies of June.And, scattering ashes on my head,I wore, undreaming of relief,The sackcloth of thy shame and grief.Again that moon of blossoms shinesOn leaf and flower and folded wing,And thou hast risen with the spring!Once more thy strong maternal armsAre round about thy children flung,—A lioness that guards her young!No threat is on thy closed lips,But in thine eye a power to smiteThe mad wolf backward from its light.Southward the baffled robber's trackHenceforth runs only; hereaway,The fell lycanthrope finds no prey.Henceforth, within thy sacred gates,His first low howl shall downward drawThe thunder of thy righteous law.Not mindless of thy trade and gain,But, acting on the wiser plan,Thou'rt grown conservative of man.So shalt thou clothe with life the hope,Dream-painted on the sightless eyesOf him who sang of Paradise,—The vision of a Christian man,In virtue, as in stature greatEmbodied in a Christian State.And thou, amidst thy sisterhoodForbearing 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 lostIn Freedom's holy Pentecost.6th mo., 1855.
OF all that Orient lands can vauntOf marvels with our own competing,The strangest is the Haschish plant,And what will follow on its eating.What pictures to the taster rise,Of Dervish or of Almeh dances!Of Eblis, or of Paradise,Set all aglow with Houri glances!The poppy visions of Cathay,The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian;The wizard lights and demon playOf nights Walpurgis and Arabian!The Mollah and the Christian dogChange place in mad metempsychosis;The Muezzin climbs the synagogue,The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses!The Arab by his desert wellSits choosing from some Caliph's daughters,And hears his single camel's bellSound welcome to his regal quarters.The Koran's reader makes complaintOf Shitan dancing on and off it;The robber offers alms, the saintDrinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet.Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes;But we have one ordained to beat it,The Haschish of the West, which makesOr fools or knaves of all who eat it.The preacher eats, and straight appearsHis Bible in a new translation;Its angels negro overseers,And Heaven itself a snug plantation!The man of peace, about whose dreamsThe sweet millennial angels cluster,Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes,A raving Cuban filibuster!The noisiest Democrat, with ease,It turns to Slavery's parish beadle;The shrewdest statesman eats and seesDue southward point the polar needle.The Judge partakes, and sits erelongUpon his bench a railing blackguard;Decides off-hand that right is wrong,And reads the ten commandments backward.O potent plant! so rare a tasteHas never Turk or Gentoo gotten;The hempen Haschish of the EastIs powerless to our Western Cotton!1854.
THE age is dull and mean. Men creep,Not walk; with blood too pale and tameTo pay the debt they owe to shame;Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleepDown-pillowed, deaf to moaning want;Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keepSix days to Mammon, one to Cant.In such a time, give thanks to God,That somewhat of the holy rageWith which the prophets in their ageOn all its decent seemings trod,Has set your feet upon the lie,That man and ox and soul and clodAre market stock to sell and buy!The hot words from your lips, my own,To caution trained, might not repeat;But if some tares among the wheatOf generous thought and deed were sown,No common wrong provoked your zeal;The silken gauntlet that is thrownIn such a quarrel rings like steel.The brave old strife the fathers sawFor Freedom calls for men againLike those who battled not in vainFor England's Charter, Alfred's law;And right of speech and trial justWage in your name their ancient warWith venal courts and perjured trust.God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late,They touch the shining hills of day;The evil cannot brook delay,The good can well afford to wait.Give ermined knaves their hour of crime;Ye have the future grand and great,The safe appeal of Truth to Time!1855.
This poem and the three following were called out by the popular movement of Free State men to occupy the territory of Kansas, and by the use of the great democratic weapon—an over-powering majority—to settle the conflict on that ground between Freedom and Slavery. The opponents of the movement used another kind of weapon.
WE cross the prairie as of oldThe pilgrims crossed the sea,To make the West, as they the East,The homestead of the free!We go to rear a wall of menOn Freedom's southern line,And plant beside the cotton-treeThe rugged Northern pine!We're flowing from our native hillsAs our free rivers flow;The blessing of our Mother-landIs on us as we go.We go to plant her common schools,On distant prairie swells,And give the Sabbaths of the wildThe music of her bells.Upbearing, like the Ark of old,The Bible in our van,We go to test the truth of GodAgainst the fraud of man.No pause, nor rest, save where the streamsThat feed the Kansas run,Save where our Pilgrim gonfalonShall flout the setting sun.We'll tread the prairie as of oldOur fathers sailed the sea,And make the West, as they the East,The homestead of the free!1854.
DOUGLAS MISSION, August, 1854,
LAST week—the Lord be praised for all His merciesTo His unworthy servant!—I arrivedSafe at the Mission, via Westport; whereI tarried over night, to aid in formingA Vigilance Committee, to send back,In shirts of tar, and feather-doublets quiltedWith forty stripes save one, all Yankee comers,Uncircumcised and Gentile, aliens fromThe Commonwealth of Israel, who despiseThe prize of the high calling of the saints,Who plant amidst this heathen wildernessPure gospel institutions, sanctifiedBy patriarchal use. The meeting openedWith prayer, as was most fitting. Half an hour,Or thereaway, I groaned, and strove, and wrestled,As Jacob did at Penuel, till the powerFell on the people, and they cried 'Amen!'"Glory to God!" and stamped and clapped their hands;And the rough river boatmen wiped their eyes;"Go it, old hoss!" they cried, and cursed the niggers—Fulfilling thus the word of prophecy,"Cursed be Cannan." After prayer, the meetingChose a committee—good and pious men—A Presbyterian Elder, Baptist deacon,A local preacher, three or four class-leaders,Anxious inquirers, and renewed backsliders,A score in all—to watch the river ferry,(As they of old did watch the fords of Jordan,)And cut off all whose Yankee tongues refuseThe Shibboleth of the Nebraska bill.And then, in answer to repeated calls,I gave a brief account of what I sawIn Washington; and truly many heartsRejoiced to know the President, and youAnd all the Cabinet regularly hearThe gospel message of a Sunday morning,Drinking with thirsty souls of the sincereMilk of the Word. Glory! Amen, and Selah!Here, at the Mission, all things have gone wellThe brother who, throughout my absence, actedAs overseer, assures me that the cropsNever were better. I have lost one negro,A first-rate hand, but obstinate and sullen.He ran away some time last spring, and hidIn the river timber. There my Indian convertsFound him, and treed and shot him. For the rest,The heathens round about begin to feelThe influence of our pious ministrationsAnd works of love; and some of them alreadyHave purchased negroes, and are settling downAs sober Christians! Bless the Lord for this!I know it will rejoice you. You, I hear,Are on the eve of visiting Chicago,To fight with the wild beasts of Ephesus,Long John, and Dutch Free-Soilers. May your armBe clothed with strength, and on your tongue be foundThe sweet oil of persuasion. So desiresYour brother and co-laborer. Amen!P.S. All's lost. Even while I write these lines,The Yankee abolitionists are comingUpon us like a flood—grim, stalwart men,Each face set like a flint of Plymouth RockAgainst our institutions—staking outTheir farm lots on the wooded Wakarusa,Or squatting by the mellow-bottomed Kansas;The pioneers of mightier multitudes,The small rain-patter, ere the thunder showerDrowns the dry prairies. Hope from man is not.Oh, for a quiet berth at Washington,Snug naval chaplaincy, or clerkship, whereThese rumors of free labor and free soilMight never meet me more. Better to beDoor-keeper in the White House, than to dwellAmidst these Yankee tents, that, whitening, showOn the green prairie like a fleet becalmed.Methinks I hear a voice come up the riverFrom those far bayous, where the alligatorsMount guard around the camping filibusters"Shake off the dust of Kansas. Turn to Cuba—(That golden orange just about to fall,O'er-ripe, into the Democratic lap;)Keep pace with Providence, or, as we say,Manifest destiny. Go forth and followThe message of our gospel, thither borneUpon the point of Quitman's bowie-knife,And the persuasive lips of Colt's revolvers.There may'st thou, underneath thy vine and figtree,Watch thy increase of sugar cane and negroes,Calm as a patriarch in his eastern tent!"Amen: So mote it be. So prays your friend.
BEAR him, comrades, to his grave;Never over one more braveShall the prairie grasses weep,In the ages yet to come,When the millions in our room,What we sow in tears, shall reap.Bear him up the icy hill,With the Kansas, frozen stillAs his noble heart, below,And the land he came to tillWith a freeman's thews and will,And his poor hut roofed with snow.One more look of that dead face,Of his murder's ghastly trace!One more kiss, O widowed oneLay your left hands on his brow,Lift your right hands up, and vowThat his work shall yet be done.Patience, friends! The eye of GodEvery path by Murder trodWatches, lidless, day and night;And the dead man in his shroud,And his widow weeping loud,And our hearts, are in His sight.Every deadly threat that swellsWith the roar of gambling hells,Every brutal jest and jeer,Every wicked thought and planOf the cruel heart of man,Though but whispered, He can hear!We in suffering, they in crime,Wait the just award of time,Wait the vengeance that is due;Not in vain a heart shall break,Not a tear for Freedom's sakeFall unheeded: God is true.While the flag with stars bedeckedThreatens where it should protect,And the Law shakes Hands with Crime,What is left us but to wait,Match our patience to our fate,And abide the better time?Patience, friends! The human heartEverywhere shall take our part,Everywhere for us shall pray;On our side are nature's laws,And God's life is in the causeThat we suffer for to-day.Well to suffer is divine;Pass the watchword down the line,Pass the countersign: "Endure."Not to him who rashly dares,But to him who nobly bears,Is the victor's garland sure.Frozen earth to frozen breast,Lay our slain one down to rest;Lay him down in hope and faith,And above the broken sod,Once again, to Freedom's God,Pledge ourselves for life or death,That the State whose walls we lay,In our blood and tears, to-day,Shall be free from bonds of shame,And our goodly land untrodBy the feet of Slavery, shodWith cursing as with flame!Plant the Buckeye on his grave,For the hunter of the slaveIn its shadow cannot rest; IAnd let martyr mound and treeBe our pledge and guarantyOf the freedom of the West!1856.
O STATE prayer-founded! never hungSuch choice upon a people's tongue,Such power to bless or ban,As that which makes thy whisper Fate,For which on thee the centuries wait,And destinies of man!Across thy Alleghanian chain,With groanings from a land in pain,The west-wind finds its way:Wild-wailing from Missouri's floodThe crying of thy children's bloodIs in thy ears to-day!And unto thee in Freedom's hourOf sorest need God gives the powerTo ruin or to save;To wound or heal, to blight or blessWith fertile field or wilderness,A free home or a grave!Then let thy virtue match the crime,Rise to a level with the time;And, if a son of thineBetray or tempt thee, Brutus-likeFor Fatherland and Freedom strikeAs Justice gives the sign.Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease,The great occasion's forelock seize;And let the north-wind strong,And golden leaves of autumn, beThy coronal of VictoryAnd thy triumphal song.10th me., 1856.
The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men, in Southern Kansas, in May, 1858, took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French voyageurs.
A BLUSH as of rosesWhere rose never grew!Great drops on the bunch-grass,But not of the dew!A taint in the sweet airFor wild bees to shun!A stain that shall neverBleach out in the sun.Back, steed of the prairiesSweet song-bird, fly back!Wheel hither, bald vulture!Gray wolf, call thy pack!The foul human vulturesHave feasted and fled;The wolves of the BorderHave crept from the dead.From the hearths of their cabins,The fields of their corn,Unwarned and unweaponed,The victims were torn,—By the whirlwind of murderSwooped up and swept onTo the low, reedy fen-lands,The Marsh of the Swan.With a vain plea for mercyNo stout knee was crooked;In the mouths of the riflesRight manly they looked.How paled the May sunshine,O Marais du Cygne!On death for the strong life,On red grass for green!In the homes of their rearing,Yet warm with their lives,Ye wait the dead only,Poor children and wives!Put out the red forge-fire,The smith shall not come;Unyoke the brown oxen,The ploughman lies dumb.Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,O dreary death-train,With pressed lips as bloodlessAs lips of the slain!Kiss down the young eyelids,Smooth down the gray hairs;Let tears quench the cursesThat burn through your prayers.Strong man of the prairies,Mourn bitter and wild!Wail, desolate woman!Weep, fatherless child!But the grain of God springs upFrom ashes beneath,And the crown of his harvestIs life out of death.Not in vain on the dialThe shade moves along,To point the great contrastsOf right and of wrong:Free homes and free altars,Free prairie and flood,—The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,Whose bloom is of blood!On the lintels of KansasThat blood shall not dry;Henceforth the Bad AngelShall harmless go by;Henceforth to the sunset,Unchecked on her way,Shall Liberty followThe march of the day.
ALL night above their rocky bedThey saw the stars march slow;The wild Sierra overhead,The desert's death below.The Indian from his lodge of bark,The gray bear from his den,Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark,Glared on the mountain men.Still upward turned, with anxious strain,Their leader's sleepless eye,Where splinters of the mountain chainStood black against the sky.The night waned slow: at last, a glow,A gleam of sudden fire,Shot up behind the walls of snow,And tipped each icy spire."Up, men!" he cried, "yon rocky cone,To-day, please God, we'll pass,And look from Winter's frozen throneOn Summer's flowers and grass!"They set their faces to the blast,They trod the eternal snow,And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at lastThe promised land below.Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossedBy many an icy horn;Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed,And green with vines and corn.They left the Winter at their backsTo flap his baffled wing,And downward, with the cataracts,Leaped to the lap of Spring.Strong leader of that mountain band,Another task remains,To break from Slavery's desert landA path to Freedom's plains.The winds are wild, the way is drear,Yet, flashing through the night,Lo! icy ridge and rocky spearBlaze out in morning light!Rise up, Fremont! and go before;The hour must have its Man;Put on the hunting-shirt once more,And lead in Freedom's van!8th mo., 1856.