Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger Day after day?
Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains; From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie; From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear, cold sky;
From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges; from the fisher's skiff, With white sail swaying to the billows' motion Round rock and cliff;
From the free fireside of her untought farmer; From her free laborer at his loom and wheel; From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the hammer, Rings the red steel;
From each and all, if God hath not forsaken Our land, and left us to an evil choice, Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken A People's voice.
Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave; And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it Within her grave.
Oh, let that voice go forth! The bondman sighing By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, Revive again.
Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing Sadly upon us from afar shall smile, And unto God devout thanksgiving raising Bless us the while.
Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, For the deliverance of a groaning earth, For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly, Let it go forth!
Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter With all they left ye perilled and at stake?
Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar The fire awake.
Prayer-strenthened for the trial, come together, Put on the harness for the moral fight, And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father, Maintain the right
1836.
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.
Thomas Shipley of Philadelphia was a lifelong Christian philanthropist, and advocate of emancipation. At his funeral thousands of colored people came to take their last look at their friend and protector. He died September 17, 1836.
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 The storm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keeping, Oh, for that hidden strength which can Nerve unto death the inner man Oh, 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.
Oh, 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 cone the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine Recalling memories sweet and holy!
Oh, 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!
1836.
THE MORAL WARFARE.
WHEN Freedom, on her natal day, Within her war-rocked cradle lay, An iron race around her stood, Baptized her infant brow in blood; And, through the storm which round her swept, Their constant ward and watching kept.
Then, where our quiet herds repose, The roar of baleful battle rose, And brethren of a common tongue To mortal strife as tigers sprung, And every gift on Freedom's shrine Was man for beast, and blood for wine!
Our fathers to their graves have gone; Their strife is past, their triumph won; But sterner trials wait the race Which rises in their honored place; A moral warfare with the crime And folly of an evil time.
So let it be. In God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons He has given,-- The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.
1836.
RITNER.
Written on reading the Message of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 1836. The fact redounds to the credit and serves to perpetuate the memory of the independent farmer and high-souled statesman, that he alone of all the Governors of the Union in 1836 met the insulting demands and menaces of the South in a manner becoming a freeman and hater of Slavery, in his message to the Legislature of Pennsylvania.
THANK God for the token! one lip is still free, One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee!
Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm; When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God, Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood; When the recreant North has forgotten her trust, And the lip of her honor is low in the dust,-- Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken!
Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken!
O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown!
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone!
To the land of the South, of the charter and chain, Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain; Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips!
Where "chivalric" honor means really no more Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor!
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high, And the words which he utters, are--Worship, or die!
Right onward, oh, speed it! Wherever the blood Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God; Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining; Wherever the lash of the driver is twining; Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart, Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart; Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, In silence and darkness, the God-given mind; There, God speed it onward! its truth will be felt, The bonds shall be loosened, the iron shall melt.
And oh, will the land where the free soul of Penn Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen; Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went forth To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of Earth; Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst; Where first for the wronged and the weak of their kind, The Christian and statesman their efforts combined; Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain?
Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain?
No, Ritner! her "Friends" at thy warning shall stand Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band; Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime; Turning back front the cavil of creeds, to unite Once again for the poor in defence of the Right; Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong, Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along; Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain, And counting each trial for Truth as their gain!
And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true, Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due; Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine, On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine,-- The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to brave The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave; Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South One brow for the brand, for the padlock one mouth?
They cater to tyrants? They rivet the chain, Which their fathers smote off, on the negro again?