Oh, tear the gorgeous emblem down!
It gathers scorn from every eye, And despots smile and good men frown Whene'er it passes by.
Shame! shame! its starry splendors glow Above the slaver's loathsome jail; Its folds are ruffling even now His crimson flag of sale.
Still round our country's proudest hall The trade in human flesh is driven, And at each careless hammer-fall A human heart is riven.
And this, too, sanctioned by the men Vested with power to shield the right, And throw each vile and robber den Wide open to the light.
Yet, shame upon them! there they sit, Men of the North, subdued and still; Meek, pliant poltroons, only fit To work a master's will.
Sold, bargained off for Southern votes, A passive herd of Northern mules, Just braying through their purchased throats Whate'er their owner rules.
And he, (2) the basest of the base, The vilest of the vile, whose name, Embalmed in infinite disgrace, Is deathless in its shame!
A tool, to bolt the people's door Against the people clamoring there, An ass, to trample on their floor A people's right of prayer!
Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast, Self-pilloried to the public view, A mark for every passing blast Of scorn to whistle through;
There let him hang, and hear the boast Of Southrons o'er their pliant tool,-- A new Stylites on his post, "Sacred to ridicule!"
Look we at home! our noble hall, To Freedom's holy purpose given, Now rears its black and ruined wall, Beneath the wintry heaven,
Telling the story of its doom, The fiendish mob, the prostrate law, The fiery jet through midnight's gloom, Our gazing thousands saw.
Look to our State! the poor man's right Torn from him: and the sons of those Whose blood in Freedom's sternest fight Sprinkled the Jersey snows,
Outlawed within the land of Penn, That Slavery's guilty fears might cease, And those whom God created men Toil on as brutes in peace.
Yet o'er the blackness of the storm A bow of promise bends on high, And gleams of sunshine, soft and warm, Break through our clouded sky.
East, West, and North, the shout is heard, Of freemen rising for the right Each valley hath its rallying word, Each hill its signal light.
O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray, The strengthening light of freedom shines, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, And Vermont's snow-hung pines!
From Hudson's frowning palisades To Alleghany's laurelled crest, O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades, It shines upon the West.
Speed on the light to those who dwell In Slavery's land of woe and sin, And through the blackness of that bell, Let Heaven's own light break in.
So shall the Southern conscience quake Before that light poured full and strong, So shall the Southern heart awake To all the bondman's wrong.
And from that rich and sunny land The song of grateful millions rise, Like that of Israel's ransomed band Beneath Arabia's skies:
And all who now are bound beneath Our banner's shade, our eagle's wing, From Slavery's night of moral death To light and life shall spring.
Broken the bondman's chain, and gone The master's guilt, and hate, and fear, And unto both alike shall dawn A New and Happy Year.
1839.
THE RELIC.
Written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work of Pennsylvania Hall which the fire had spared.
TOKEN of friendship true and tried, From one whose fiery heart of youth With mine has beaten, side by side, For Liberty and Truth; With honest pride the gift I take, And prize it for the giver's sake.
But not alone because it tells Of generous hand and heart sincere; Around that gift of friendship dwells A memory doubly dear; Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought, With that memorial frail in wrought!
Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold, And precious memories round it cling, Even as the Prophet's rod of old In beauty blossoming: And buds of feeling, pure and good, Spring from its cold unconscious wood.
Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand Plucked from its burning! let it be Dear as a jewel from the hand Of a lost friend to me!
Flower of a perished garland left, Of life and beauty unbereft!
Oh, if the young enthusiast bears, O'er weary waste and sea, the stone Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs, Or round the Parthenon; Or olive-bough from some wild tree Hung over old Thermopylae:
If leaflets from some hero's tomb, Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary; Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom On fields renowned in story; Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest, Or the gray rock by Druids blessed;
Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing Where Freedom led her stalwart kern, Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle" blowing On Bruce's Bannockburn; Or Runnymede's wild English rose, Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows!
If it be true that things like these To heart and eye bright visions bring, Shall not far holier memories To this memorial cling Which needs no mellowing mist of time To hide the crimson stains of crime!
Wreck of a temple, unprofaned; Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod, Lifting on high, with hands unstained, Thanksgiving unto God; Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading For human hearts in bondage bleeding;
Where, midst the sound of rushing feet And curses on the night-air flung, That pleading voice rose calm and sweet From woman's earnest tongue; And Riot turned his scowling glance, Awed, from her tranquil countenance!
That temple now in ruin lies!
The fire-stain on its shattered wall, And open to the changing skies Its black and roofless hall, It stands before a nation's sight, A gravestone over buried Right!
But from that ruin, as of old, The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, And from their ashes white and cold Its timbers are replying!
A voice which slavery cannot kill Speaks from the crumbling arches still!
And even this relic from thy shrine, O holy Freedom! Hath to me A potent power, a voice and sign To testify of thee; And, grasping it, methinks I feel A deeper faith, a stronger zeal.
And not unlike that mystic rod, Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, Which opened, in the strength of God, A pathway for the slave, It yet may point the bondman's way, And turn the spoiler from his prey.
1839.
THE WORLD'S CONVENTION OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION,
HELD IN LONDON IN 1840.
Joseph Sturge, the founder of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, proposed the calling of a world's anti-slavery convention, and the proposal was promptly seconded by the American Anti-Slavery Society.
The call was addressed to "friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime."