What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall ? When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of "LIBERTY OR DEATH!" What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell - Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow; Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool! All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild de spair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains. MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, 25 By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginian name; We wash our hands forever, of your sin, and shame, and curse. A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been, Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men: The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill. And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke; How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke ! A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high, A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply; Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang, And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang ! The voice of free, broad Middlesex of thousands as of one- From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows, To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir, Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of "God save Latimer!" And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay! Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill, And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill. The voice of Massachusetts ! Of her free sons and daughters — Deep calling unto deep aloud — the sound of many waters! Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand? No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land! Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves! We wage no war we lift no arm-we fling no torch within The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin; We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and God-like soul of man ! But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given THE BRANDED HAND. 27 THE BRANDED HAND. 1846. WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, W And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day, With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve, in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain! Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim They change to wrong, the duty which God hath written out They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown, Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown! Why, that brand is highest honor! than its traces never yet Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set; As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back from Syrian wars The scars of Arab lances, and of Paynim scimetars, The pallor of the prison and the shackle's crimson span, So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man! He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God! For, while the jurist sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung, While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt, In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below, Thou did'st learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know; God's stars and silence taught thee, as his angels only can, That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave! Its branded palm shall prophesy, "SALVATION TO THE SLAVE ! Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel. Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air, yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before! And the tyrants of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, hand! |