Brave sport to see the fledgling born Of Freedom by its parent torn!
Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell, Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, What of the New World fears the Old?
1847.
RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.
O MOTHER EARTH! upon thy lap Thy weary ones receiving, And o'er them, silent as a dream, Thy grassy mantle weaving, Fold softly in thy long embrace That heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneath Thy shadows old and oaken.
Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning.
Breathe over him forgetfulness Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness.
There, where with living ear and eye He heard Potomac's flowing, And, through his tall ancestral trees, Saw autumn's sunset glowing, He sleeps, still looking to the west, Beneath the dark wood shadow, As if he still would see the sun Sink down on wave and meadow.
Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himself All moods of mind contrasting,-- The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting; The pathos which from rival eyes Unwilling tears could summon, The stinging taunt, the fiery burst Of hatred scarcely human!
Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, From lips of life-long sadness; Clear picturings of majestic thought Upon a ground of madness; And over all Romance and Song A classic beauty throwing, And laurelled Clio at his side Her storied pages showing.
All parties feared him: each in turn Beheld its schemes disjointed, As right or left his fatal glance And spectral finger pointed.
Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down With trenchant wit unsparing, And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand The robe Pretence was wearing.
Too honest or too proud to feign A love he never cherished, Beyond Virginia's border line His patriotism perished.
While others hailed in distant skies Our eagle's dusky pinion, He only saw the mountain bird Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!
Still through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning, His loving faith in Mother-land Knew never shade of turning; By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide, Whatever sky was o'er him, He heard her rivers' rushing sound, Her blue peaks rose before him.
He held his slaves, yet made withal No false and vain pretences, Nor paid a lying priest to seek For Scriptural defences.
His harshest words of proud rebuke, His bitterest taunt and scorning, Fell fire-like on the Northern brow That bent to him in fawning.
He held his slaves; yet kept the while His reverence for the Human; In the dark vassals of his will He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God's outraged poor His Roanoke valley entered; No trader in the souls of men Across his threshold ventured.
And when the old and wearied man Lay down for his last sleeping, And at his side, a slave no more, His brother-man stood weeping, His latest thought, his latest breath, To Freedom's duty giving, With failing tengue and trembling hand The dying blest the living.
Oh, never bore his ancient State A truer son or braver None trampling with a calmer scorn On foreign hate or favor.
He knew her faults, yet never stooped His proud and manly feeling To poor excuses of the wrong Or meanness of concealing.
But none beheld with clearer eye The plague-spot o'er her spreading, None heard more sure the steps of Doom Along her future treading.
For her as for himself he spake, When, his gaunt frame upbracing, He traced with dying hand "Remorse!"
And perished in the tracing.
As from the grave where Henry sleeps, From Vernon's weeping willow, And from the grassy pall which hides The Sage of Monticello, So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone Of Randolph's lowly dwelling, Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves A warning voice is swelling!
And hark! from thy deserted fields Are sadder warnings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons Their household gods have broken.
The curse is on thee,--wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheaves giving Oh, more than all thy dead renown Were now one hero living
1847.
THE LOST STATESMAN.
Written on hearing of the death of Silas Wright of New York.
As they who, tossing midst the storm at night, While turning shoreward, where a beacon shone, Meet the walled blackness of the heaven alone, So, on the turbulent waves of party tossed, In gloom and tempest, men have seen thy light Quenched in the darkness. At thy hour of noon, While life was pleasant to thy undimmed sight, And, day by day, within thy spirit grew A holier hope than young Ambition knew, As through thy rural quiet, not in vain, Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's cry of pain, Man of the millions, thou art lost too soon Portents at which the bravest stand aghast,-- The birth-throes of a Future, strange and vast, Alarm the land; yet thou, so wise and strong, Suddenly summoned to the burial bed, Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long, Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead.
Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host?
Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?
Who stay the march of slavery? He whose voice Hath called thee from thy task-field shall not lack Yet bolder champions, to beat bravely back The wrong which, through his poor ones, reaches Him: Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torchlights trim, And wave them high across the abysmal black, Till bound, dumb millions there shall see them and rejoice.
10th mo., 1847.
THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.
Suggested by a daguerreotype taken from a small French engraving of two negro figures, sent to the writer by Oliver Johnson.
BEAMS of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten, As she stands before her lover, with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful beauty wrong.
He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's garb and hue, Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher nature true;
Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman in his heart, As the gregree holds his Fetich from the white man's gaze apart.
Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver's morning horn Calls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields of cane and corn.
Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back or limb; Scarce with look or word of censure, turns the driver unto him.
Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye is hard and stern; Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never deigned to learn.
And, at evening, when his comrades dance before their master's door, Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands he silent evermore.
God be praised for every instinct which rebels against a lot Where the brute survives the human, and man's upright form is not!
As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral fold on fold Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in his hold;
Slow decays the forest monarch, closer girds the fell embrace, Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine is in its place;
So a base and bestial nature round the vassal's manhood twines, And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the ceiba choked with vines.
God is Love, saith the Evangel; and our world of woe and sin Is made light and happy only when a Love is shining in.
Ye whose lives are free as sunshine, finding, where- soe'er ye roam, Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness, making all the world like home;