1846.
THE FREED ISLANDS.
Written for the anniversary celebration of the first of August, at Milton, 7846.
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!
O 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!"
A LETTER.
Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" at Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which resulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the election of John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their authorship was not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They furnish a specimen of the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in which the liberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and political outlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected.
'T is over, Moses! All is lost I hear the bells a-ringing; Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host I hear the Free-Wills singing (4) We're routed, Moses, horse and foot, If there be truth in figures, With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit, And Hale, and all the "niggers."
Alack! alas! this month or more We've felt a sad foreboding; Our very dreams the burden bore Of central cliques exploding; Before our eyes a furnace shone, Where heads of dough were roasting, And one we took to be your own The traitor Hale was toasting!
Our Belknap brother (5) heard with awe The Congo minstrels playing; At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt (6) saw The ghost of Storrs a-praying; And Calroll's woods were sad to see, With black-winged crows a-darting; And Black Snout looked on Ossipee, New-glossed with Day and Martin.
We thought the "Old Man of the Notch"
His face seemed changing wholly-- His lips seemed thick; his nose seemed flat; His misty hair looked woolly; And Coos teamsters, shrieking, fled From the metamorphosed figure.
"Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone Head Himself is turning nigger!"
The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauled Seemed turning on its track again, And like a great swamp-turtle crawled To Canaan village back again, Shook off the mud and settled flat Upon its underpinning; A nigger on its ridge-pole sat, From ear to ear a-grinning.
Gray H----d heard o' nights the sound Of rail-cars onward faring; Right over Democratic ground The iron horse came tearing.
A flag waved o'er that spectral train, As high as Pittsfield steeple; Its emblem was a broken chain; Its motto: "To the people!"
I dreamed that Charley took his bed, With Hale for his physician; His daily dose an old "unread And unreferred" petition. (8) There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat, As near as near could be, man; They leeched him with the "Democrat;"
They blistered with the "Freeman."
Ah! grisly portents! What avail Your terrors of forewarning?
We wake to find the nightmare Hale Astride our breasts at morning!
From Portsmouth lights to Indian stream Our foes their throats are trying; The very factory-spindles seem To mock us while they're flying.
The hills have bonfires; in our streets Flags flout us in our faces; The newsboys, peddling off their sheets, Are hoarse with our disgraces.
In vain we turn, for gibing wit And shoutings follow after, As if old Kearsarge had split His granite sides with laughter.
What boots it that we pelted out The anti-slavery women, (9) And bravely strewed their hall about With tattered lace and trimming?
Was it for such a sad reverse Our mobs became peacemakers, And kept their tar and wooden horse For Englishmen and Quakers?
For this did shifty Atherton Make gag rules for the Great House?
Wiped we for this our feet upon Petitions in our State House?
Plied we for this our axe of doom, No stubborn traitor sparing, Who scoffed at our opinion loom, And took to homespun wearing?
Ah, Moses! hard it is to scan These crooked providences, Deducing from the wisest plan The saddest consequences!
Strange that, in trampling as was meet The nigger-men's petition, We sprang a mine beneath our feet Which opened up perdition.
How goodly, Moses, was the game In which we've long been actors, Supplying freedom with the name And slavery with the practice Our smooth words fed the people's mouth, Their ears our party rattle; We kept them headed to the South, As drovers do their cattle.
But now our game of politics The world at large is learning; And men grown gray in all our tricks State's evidence are turning.
Votes and preambles subtly spun They cram with meanings louder, And load the Democratic gun With abolition powder.
The ides of June! Woe worth the day When, turning all things over, The traitor Hale shall make his hay From Democratic clover!
Who then shall take him in the law, Who punish crime so flagrant?
Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw, A writ against that "vagrant"?
Alas! no hope is left us here, And one can only pine for The envied place of overseer Of slaves in Carolina!
Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink, And see what pay he's giving!
We've practised long enough, we think, To know the art of driving.
And for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their while To try the rice plantations.
Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper; The slaves, we know, are "better off Than laborers in New Hampshire!"
LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND.
A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of fire, O Freedom's God! be Thou to him!
Speak through him words of power and fear, As through Thy prophet bards of old, And let a scornful people hear Once more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled.
For lying lips Thy blessing seek, And hands of blood are raised to Thee, And On Thy children, crushed and weak, The oppressor plants his kneeling knee.