The laborer sits beneath his vine,
The shackled soul and hand are free
Thanksgiving!-for the work is Thine!
Praise for the blessing is of Thee!
And oh, we feel Thy presence here —
Thy awful arm in judgment bare !
Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear-
Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer!
Praise for the pride of man is low,
The counsels of the wise are nought,
The fountains of repentance flow;
What hath our God in mercy wrought?
Speed on Thy work, Lord God of Hosts!
And when the bondman's chain is riven,
And swells from all our guilty coasts
The anthem of the free to Heaven,
Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led,
As with Thy cloud and fire before,
But unto Thee, in fear and dread,
Be praise and glory ever more.
WRITTEN for the Anniversary celebration of the First of August, at Milton, 1846.
A FEW brief years have passed away
Since Britain drove her million slaves
Beneath the tropic's fiery ray :
God willed their freedom; and to-day
Life blooms above those island graves!
He spoke across the Carib sea,
We heard the clash of breaking chains,
And felt the heart-throb of the free,
The first, strong pulse of liberty
Which thrilled along the bondman's veins.
Though long delayed, and far, and slow,
The Briton's triumph shall be ours:
Wears slavery here a prouder brow
Than that which twelve short years ago
Scowled darkly from her island bowers?
Mighty alike for good or ill
With mother-land, we fully share
The Saxon strength-the nerve of steel
The tireless energy of will,
The power to do, the pride to dare.
What she has done can we not do?
Our hour and men are both at hand; The blast which Freedom's angel blew O'er her green islands, echoes through Each valley of our forest land.
Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn
The death of slavery. When it falls
Look to your vassals in their turn,
Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn,
Your prisons and your palace walls!
Oh kingly mockers! scoffing show
What deeds in Freedom's name we do;
Yet know that every taunt ye throw
Across the waters, goads our slow
Progression towards the right and true.
Not always shall your outraged poor,
Appalled by democratic crime,
Grind as their fathers ground before,
The hour which sees our prison door
Swing wide shall be their triumph time.
On then, my brothers! every blow
Ye deal is felt the wide earth through; Whatever here uplifts the low Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe,
Blesses the Old World through the New.
Take heart! The promised hour draws near
I hear the downward beat of wings,
And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear
Joy to the people!-woe and fear
To new world tyrants, old world kings!"
OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS, SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
Gone, gone sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air, -
Gone, gone sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Oh, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and racked with pain,
To their cheerless homes again
There no brother's voice shall greet them-
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play
From the cool spring where they drank —
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank -
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there
Gone, gone. sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
To the rice-swamp dank and lone Toiling through the weary day, And at night the spoiler's prey. Oh, that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant's power is o'er, And the fetter galls no more! Gone, gonesold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters, Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth
By the bruised reed He spareth
Oh, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than a mother's love.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
WRITTEN for the opening of "PENnsylvania HalL," dedicated to Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, and Independence, on
the 15th of the 5th month, 1838.
NOT with the splendors of the days of old,
The spoil of nations, and "barbaric gold"
No weapons wrested from the fields of blood,
Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood,
And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw
A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law-
Nor blazoned car -nor banners floating gay,
Like those which swept along the Appian way,
When, to the welcome of imperial Rome,
The victor warrior came in triumph home,
And trumpet-peal, and shoutings wild and high,
Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian sky;
But calm and grateful, prayerful and sincere,
As Christian freemen, only, gathering here,
We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall,
Pillar and arch, entablature and wall,
As Virtue's shrine-as Liberty's abode
Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God!
|