That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet, Shall know no check, Till a free people's foot is set On Slavery's neck.
Even now, the peal of bell and gun, And hills aflame, Tell of the first great triumph won In Freedom's name. (10)
The long night dies: the welcome gray Of dawn we see; Speed up the heavens thy perfect day, God of the free!
1851.
OFFICIAL PIETY.
Suggested by reading a state paper, wherein the higher law is invoked to sustain the lower one.
A Pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh?
Sin in high places has become devout, Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety!
The pirate, watching from his bloody deck The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold Of Acapulco, holding death in check While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told; The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss From his own carbine, glancing still abroad For some new victim, offering thanks to God!
Rome, listening at her altars to the cry Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high, Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, "Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!"
What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?
Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase And saintly posture, gives to God the praise And honor of the monstrous progeny.
What marvel, then, in our own time to see His old devices, smoothly acted o'er,-- Official piety, locking fast the door Of Hope against three million soups of men,-- Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed,--and then, With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee, Whining a prayer for help to hide the key!
1853.
THE RENDITION.
On the 2d of June, 1854, Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, after being under arrest for ten days in the Boston Court House, was remanded to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act, and taken down State Street to a steamer chartered by the United States Government, under guard of United States troops and artillery, Massachusetts militia and Boston police. Public excitement ran high, a futile attempt to rescue Burns having been made during his confinement, and the streets were crowded with tens of thousands of people, of whom many came from other towns and cities of the State to witness the humiliating spectacle.
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, I saw an earnest look beseech, And rather by that look than speech My neighbor told me all.
And, as I thought of Liberty Marched handcuffed down that sworded street, The solid earth beneath my feet Reeled fluid as the sea.
I felt a sense of bitter loss,-- Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, And loathing fear, as if my path A serpent stretched across.
All love of home, all pride of place, All generous confidence and trust, Sank smothering in that deep disgust And anguish of disgrace.
Down on my native hills of June, And home's green quiet, hiding all, Fell sudden darkness like the fall Of midnight upon noon.
And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God The blasphemy of wrong.
"O Mother, from thy memories proud, Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, Lend this dead air a breeze of health, And smite with stars this cloud.
"Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, Rise awful in thy strength," I said; Ah me! I spake but to the dead; I stood upon her grave!
6th mo., 1854.
ARISEN AT LAST.
On the passage of the bill to protect the rights and liberties of the people of the State against the Fugitive Slave Act.
I SAID I stood upon thy grave, My Mother State, when last the moon Of blossoms clomb the skies of June.
And, scattering ashes on my head, I wore, undreaming of relief, The sackcloth of thy shame and grief.
Again that moon of blossoms shines On leaf and flower and folded wing, And thou hast risen with the spring!
Once more thy strong maternal arms Are round about thy children flung,-- A lioness that guards her young!
No threat is on thy closed lips, But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from its light.
Southward the baffled robber's track Henceforth runs only; hereaway, The fell lycanthrope finds no prey.
Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, His first low howl shall downward draw The thunder of thy righteous law.
Not mindless of thy trade and gain, But, acting on the wiser plan, Thou'rt grown conservative of man.
So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, Dream-painted on the sightless eyes Of him who sang of Paradise,--
The vision of a Christian man, In virtue, as in stature great Embodied in a Christian State.
And thou, amidst thy sisterhood Forbearing long, yet standing fast, Shalt win their grateful thanks at last;
When North and South shall strive no more, And all their feuds and fears be lost In Freedom's holy Pentecost.
6th mo., 1855.
THE HASCHISH.
OF all that Orient lands can vaunt Of marvels with our own competing, The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what will follow on its eating.
What pictures to the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances!
Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances!
The poppy visions of Cathay, The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian; The wizard lights and demon play Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian!
The Mollah and the Christian dog Change place in mad metempsychosis; The Muezzin climbs the synagogue, The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses!