Written for the Fssex County Agricultural Festival, 1865.
THANK God for rest, where none molest,And none can make afraid;For Peace that sits as Plenty's guestBeneath the homestead shade!
Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,The negro's broken chains,And beat them at the blacksmith's forgeTo ploughshares for our plains.
Alike henceforth our hills of snow,And vales where cotton flowers;All streams that flow, all winds that blow,Are Freedom's motive-powers.
Henceforth to Labor's chivalryBe knightly honors paid;For nobler than the sword's shall beThe sickle's accolade.
Build up an altar to the Lord,O grateful hearts of oursAnd shape it of the greenest swardThat ever drank the showers.
Lay all the bloom of gardens there,And there the orchard fruits;Bring golden grain from sun and air,From earth her goodly roots.
There let our banners droop and flow,The stars uprise and fall;Our roll of martyrs, sad and slow,Let sighing breezes call.
Their names let hands of horn and tanAnd rough-shod feet applaud,Who died to make the slave a man,And link with toil reward.
There let the common heart keep timeTo such an anthem sungAs never swelled on poet's rhyme,Or thrilled on singer's tongue.
Song of our burden and relief,Of peace and long annoy;The passion of our mighty griefAnd our exceeding joy!
A song of praise to Him who filledThe harvests sown in tears,And gave each field a double yieldTo feed our battle-years.
A song of faith that trusts the endTo match the good begun,Nor doubts the power of Love to blendThe hearts of men as one!
The thirty-ninth congress was that which met in 1565 after the close of the war, when it was charged with the great question of reconstruction; the uppermost subject in men's minds was the standing of those who had recently been in arms against the Union and their relations to the freedmen.
O PEOPLE-CHOSEN! are ye notLikewise the chosen of the Lord,To do His will and speak His word?
From the loud thunder-storm of warNot man alone hath called ye forth,But He, the God of all the earth!
The torch of vengeance in your handsHe quenches; unto Him belongsThe solemn recompense of wrongs.
Enough of blood the land has seen,And not by cell or gallows-stairShall ye the way of God prepare.
Say to the pardon-seekers: KeepYour manhood, bend no suppliant knees,Nor palter with unworthy pleas.
Above your voices sounds the wailOf starving men; we shut in vain *Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain. **
What words can drown that bitter cry?What tears wash out the stain of death?What oaths confirm your broken faith?
From you alone the guarantyOf union, freedom, peace, we claim;We urge no conqueror's terms of shame.
Alas! no victor's pride is ours;We bend above our triumphs wonLike David o'er his rebel son.
Be men, not beggars. Cancel allBy one brave, generous action; trustYour better instincts, and be just.
Make all men peers before the law,Take hands from off the negro's throat,Give black and white an equal vote.
Keep all your forfeit lives and lands,But give the common law's redressTo labor's utter nakedness.
Revive the old heroic will;Be in the right as brave and strongAs ye have proved yourselves in wrong.
Defeat shall then be victory,Your loss the wealth of full amends,And hate be love, and foes be friends.
Then buried be the dreadful past,Its common slain be mourned, and letAll memories soften to regret.
Then shall the Union's mother-heartHer lost and wandering ones recall,Forgiving and restoring all,—
And Freedom break her marble tranceAbove the Capitolian dome,Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome homeNovember, 1865.
* Andersonville prison.** The massacre of Negro troops at Fort Pillow.
IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame,So terrible alive,Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, becameThe wandering wild bees' hive;And he who, lone and naked-handed, toreThose jaws of death apart,In after time drew forth their honeyed storeTo strengthen his strong heart.
Dead seemed the legend: but it only sleptTo wake beneath our sky;Just on the spot whence ravening Treason creptBack to its lair to die,Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds,A stained and shattered drumIs now the hive where, on their flowery rounds,The wild bees go and come.
Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel,They wander wide and far,Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell,Through vales once choked with war.The low reveille of their battle-drumDisturbs no morning prayer;With deeper peace in summer noons their humFills all the drowsy air.
And Samson's riddle is our own to-day,Of sweetness from the strong,Of union, peace, and freedom plucked awayFrom the rent jaws of wrong.From Treason's death we draw a purer life,As, from the beast he slew,A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strifeThe old-time athlete drew!1868.
RIGHT in the track where ShermanPloughed his red furrow,Out of the narrow cabin,Up from the cellar's burrow,Gathered the little black people,With freedom newly dowered,Where, beside their Northern teacher,Stood the soldier, Howard.
He listened and heard the childrenOf the poor and long-enslavedReading the words of Jesus,Singing the songs of David.Behold!—the dumb lips speaking,The blind eyes seeing!Bones of the Prophet's visionWarmed into being!
Transformed he saw them passingTheir new life's portalAlmost it seemed the mortalPut on the immortal.No more with the beasts of burden,No more with stone and clod,But crowned with glory and honorIn the image of God!
There was the human chattelIts manhood taking;There, in each dark, bronze statue,A soul was waking!The man of many battles,With tears his eyelids pressing,Stretched over those dusky foreheadsHis one-armed blessing.
And he said: "Who hears can neverFear for or doubt you;What shall I tell the childrenUp North about you?"Then ran round a whisper, a murmur,Some answer devising:And a little boy stood up: "General,Tell 'em we're rising!"
O black boy of Atlanta!But half was spokenThe slave's chain and the master'sAlike are broken.The one curse of the racesHeld both in tetherThey are rising,—all are rising,The black and white together!
O brave men and fair women!Ill comes of hate and scorningShall the dark faces onlyBe turned to mourning?—Make Time your sole avenger,All-healing, all-redressing;Meet Fate half-way, and make itA joy and blessing!1869.
Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate of the Freedman's Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington. The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The group was designed by Thomas Ball, and was unveiled December 9, 1879. These verses were written for the occasion.
AMIDST thy sacred effigiesOf old renown give place,O city, Freedom-loved! to hisWhose hand unchained a race.
Take the worn frame, that rested notSave in a martyr's grave;The care-lined face, that none forgot,Bent to the kneeling slave.
Let man be free! The mighty wordHe spake was not his own;An impulse from the Highest stirredThese chiselled lips alone.
The cloudy sign, the fiery guide,Along his pathway ran,And Nature, through his voice, deniedThe ownership of man.
We rest in peace where these sad eyesSaw peril, strife, and pain;His was the nation's sacrifice,And ours the priceless gain.
O symbol of God's will on earthAs it is done above!Bear witness to the cost and worthOf justice and of love.
Stand in thy place and testifyTo coming ages long,That truth is stronger than a lie,And righteousness than wrong.
A number of students of Fisk University, under the direction of one of the officers, gave a series of concerts in the Northern States, for the purpose of establishing the college on a firmer financial foundation. Their hymns and songs, mostly in a minor key, touched the hearts of the people, and were received as peculiarly expressive of a race delivered from bondage.
VOICE of a people suffering long,The pathos of their mournful song,The sorrow of their night of wrong!
Their cry like that which Israel gave,A prayer for one to guide and save,Like Moses by the Red Sea's wave!
The stern accord her timbrel lentTo Miriam's note of triumph sentO'er Egypt's sunken armament!
The tramp that startled camp and town,And shook the walls of slavery down,The spectral march of old John Brown!
The storm that swept through battle-days,The triumph after long delays,The bondmen giving God the praise!
Voice of a ransomed race, sing onTill Freedom's every right is won,And slavery's every wrong undone1880.
The earliest poem in this division was my youthful tribute to the great reformer when himself a young man he was first sounding his trumpet in Essex County. I close with the verses inscribed to him at the end of his earthly career, May 24, 1879. My poetical service in the cause of freedom is thus almost synchronous with his life of devotion to the same cause.
THE storm and peril overpast,The hounding hatred shamed and still,Go, soul of freedom! take at lastThe place which thou alone canst fill.
Confirm the lesson taught of old—Life saved for self is lost, while theyWho lose it in His service holdThe lease of God's eternal day.
Not for thyself, but for the slaveThy words of thunder shook the world;No selfish griefs or hatred gaveThe strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled.
From lips that Sinai's trumpet blewWe heard a tender under song;Thy very wrath from pity grew,From love of man thy hate of wrong.
Now past and present are as one;The life below is life above;Thy mortal years have but begunThy immortality of love.
With somewhat of thy lofty faithWe lay thy outworn garment by,Give death but what belongs to death,And life the life that cannot die!
Not for a soul like thine the calmOf selfish ease and joys of sense;But duty, more than crown or palm,Its own exceeding recompense.
Go up and on thy day well done,Its morning promise well fulfilled,Arise to triumphs yet unwon,To holier tasks that God has willed.
Go, leave behind thee all that marsThe work below of man for man;With the white legions of the starsDo service such as angels can.
Wherever wrong shall right denyOr suffering spirits urge their plea,Be thine a voice to smite the lie,A hand to set the captive free!