So shalt thou deftly raise

The market price of human flesh; and while
On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile,
Thy church shall praise.

Grave, reverend men shall tell

From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest,
While in that vile South Sodom, first and best,
Thy poor disciples sell.

Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall,
Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels,
While turning to the sacred Kebla feels
His fetters break and fall.

Cheers for the turbaned Bey

Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn
The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne
Their inmates into day:

But our poor slave in vain

Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes-
Its rites will only swell his market price,
And rivet on his chain.

God of all right! how long
Shall priestly robbers at thine altar stand,
Lifting in prayer to Thee, the bloody hand
And haughty brow of wrong?

Oh, from the fields of cane,

From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cellFrom the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain,

Hoarse, horrible, and strong,

Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry,
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,

HOW LONG, O GOD, HOW LONG ?

STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

15

STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

S this the land our fathers loved,

Is

The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in ?
Are we the sons by whom are borne
The mantles which the dead have worn?
And shall we crouch above these graves,
With craven soul and fettered lip?
Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,
And tremble at the driver's whip?
Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak but as our masters please?
Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?
Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow?
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel-

The dungeon's gloom - the assassin's blow,
Turn back the spirit roused to save
The Truth, our Country, and the Slave?

Of human skulls that shrine was made,
Round which the priests of Mexico
Before their loathsome idol prayed,

Is Freedom's altar fashioned so?
And must we yield to Freedom's God,
As offering meet, the negro's blood?

Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?

Shall Honor bleed?

Shall Truth succumb?

Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?

No-by each spot of haunted ground,

Where Freedom weeps her children's fall By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound By Griswold's stained and shattered wall By Warren's ghost- by Langdon's shade By all the memories of our dead!

By their enlarging souls, which burst

The bands and fetters round them set
By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed
Within our inmost bosoms, yet -

By all above

around-belowBe ours the indignant answer -NO !

No

guided by our country's laws,

For truth, and right, and suffering man,
Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause,
As Christians may · -as freemen can!
Still pouring on unwilling ears
That truth oppression only fears.

What! shall we guard our neighbor still,
While woman shrieks beneath his rod,
And while he tramples down at will

The image of a common God!
Shall watch and ward be round him set,
Of Northern nerve and bayonet?

And shall we know and share with him

The danger and the growing shame? And see our Freedom's light grow dim,

Which should have filled the world with fame 1 And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, A world's reproach around us burn?

Is 't not enough that this is borne ?

And asks our haughty neighbor more?
Must fetters which his slaves have worn,

Clank round the Yankee farmer's door?
Must he be told, beside his plough,
What he must speak, and when, and how?

STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

Must he be told his freedom stands

On Slavery's dark foundations strong -
On breaking hearts and fettered hands,
On robbery, and crime, and wrong?
That all his fathers taught is vain-
That Freedom's emblem is the chain?

Its life its soul, from slavery drawn?
False-foul-profane!

Go― teach as well

Of holy Truth from Falsehood born!

Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell!
Of Virtue in the arms of Vice!
Of Demons planting Paradise!

Rail on, then, "brethren of the South "
Ye shall not hear the truth the less
No seal is on the Yankee's mouth,
No fetter on the Yankee's press!
From our Green Mountains to the Sea,
One voice shall thunder- WE ARE FREE!

17

OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

GONE, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,