Patience, friends! The eye of God Every path by Murder trod Watches, lidless, day and night; And the dead man in his shroud, And his widow weeping loud, And our hearts, are in His sight.
Every deadly threat that swells With the roar of gambling hells, Every brutal jest and jeer, Every wicked thought and plan Of the cruel heart of man, Though but whispered, He can hear!
We in suffering, they in crime, Wait the just award of time, Wait the vengeance that is due; Not in vain a heart shall break, Not a tear for Freedom's sake Fall unheeded: God is true.
While the flag with stars bedecked Threatens where it should protect, And the Law shakes Hands with Crime, What is left us but to wait, Match our patience to our fate, And abide the better time?
Patience, friends! The human heart Everywhere shall take our part, Everywhere for us shall pray; On our side are nature's laws, And God's life is in the cause That we suffer for to-day.
Well to suffer is divine; Pass the watchword down the line, Pass the countersign: "Endure."
Not to him who rashly dares, But to him who nobly bears, Is the victor's garland sure.
Frozen earth to frozen breast, Lay our slain one down to rest; Lay him down in hope and faith, And above the broken sod, Once again, to Freedom's God, Pledge ourselves for life or death,
That the State whose walls we lay, In our blood and tears, to-day, Shall be free from bonds of shame, And our goodly land untrod By the feet of Slavery, shod With cursing as with flame!
Plant the Buckeye on his grave, For the hunter of the slave In its shadow cannot rest; I And let martyr mound and tree Be our pledge and guaranty Of the freedom of the West!
1856.
TO PENNSYLVANIA.
O STATE prayer-founded! never hung Such choice upon a people's tongue, Such power to bless or ban, As that which makes thy whisper Fate, For which on thee the centuries wait, And destinies of man!
Across thy Alleghanian chain, With groanings from a land in pain, The west-wind finds its way: Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood The crying of thy children's blood Is in thy ears to-day!
And unto thee in Freedom's hour Of sorest need God gives the power To ruin or to save; To wound or heal, to blight or bless With fertile field or wilderness, A free home or a grave!
Then let thy virtue match the crime, Rise to a level with the time; And, if a son of thine Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like For Fatherland and Freedom strike As Justice gives the sign.
Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease, The great occasion's forelock seize; And let the north-wind strong, And golden leaves of autumn, be Thy coronal of Victory And thy triumphal song.
10th me., 1856.
LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.
The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men, in Southern Kansas, in May, 1858, took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French voyageurs.
A BLUSH as of roses Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch-grass, But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never Bleach out in the sun.
Back, steed of the prairies Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack!
The foul human vultures Have feasted and fled; The wolves of the Border Have crept from the dead.
From the hearths of their cabins, The fields of their corn, Unwarned and unweaponed, The victims were torn,-- By the whirlwind of murder Swooped up and swept on To the low, reedy fen-lands, The Marsh of the Swan.
With a vain plea for mercy No stout knee was crooked; In the mouths of the rifles Right manly they looked.
How paled the May sunshine, O Marais du Cygne!
On death for the strong life, On red grass for green!
In the homes of their rearing, Yet warm with their lives, Ye wait the dead only, Poor children and wives!
Put out the red forge-fire, The smith shall not come; Unyoke the brown oxen, The ploughman lies dumb.
Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh, O dreary death-train, With pressed lips as bloodless As lips of the slain!
Kiss down the young eyelids, Smooth down the gray hairs; Let tears quench the curses That burn through your prayers.
Strong man of the prairies, Mourn bitter and wild!
Wail, desolate woman!
Weep, fatherless child!
But the grain of God springs up From ashes beneath, And the crown of his harvest Is life out of death.
Not in vain on the dial The shade moves along, To point the great contrasts Of right and of wrong: Free homes and free altars, Free prairie and flood,-- The reeds of the Swan's Marsh, Whose bloom is of blood!
On the lintels of Kansas That blood shall not dry; Henceforth the Bad Angel Shall harmless go by; Henceforth to the sunset, Unchecked on her way, Shall Liberty follow The march of the day.
THE PASS OF THE SIERRA.
ALL night above their rocky bed They saw the stars march slow; The wild Sierra overhead, The desert's death below.
The Indian from his lodge of bark, The gray bear from his den, Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark, Glared on the mountain men.
Still upward turned, with anxious strain, Their leader's sleepless eye, Where splinters of the mountain chain Stood black against the sky.
The night waned slow: at last, a glow, A gleam of sudden fire, Shot up behind the walls of snow, And tipped each icy spire.
"Up, men!" he cried, "yon rocky cone, To-day, please God, we'll pass, And look from Winter's frozen throne On Summer's flowers and grass!"
They set their faces to the blast, They trod the eternal snow, And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last The promised land below.
Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed By many an icy horn; Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed, And green with vines and corn.
They left the Winter at their backs To flap his baffled wing, And downward, with the cataracts, Leaped to the lap of Spring.
Strong leader of that mountain band, Another task remains, To break from Slavery's desert land A path to Freedom's plains.