TO ENGLISHMEN. YOU flung your taunt across the wave; We bore it as became us, Well knowing that the fettered slave' Left friendly lips no option save To pity or to blame us. You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will, Not lack of power," you told us: We showed our free-state records; still You mocked, confounding good and ill, We struck at Slavery; to the verge Lo!-presto, change! its claims you urge, Send greetings to it o'er the surge, And comfort and protect it. But yesterday you scarce could shake, In slave-abhorring rigor, Our Northern palms, for conscience' sake: O Englishmen !-in hope and creed, And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed "Thicker than water," in one rill Through centuries of story *See English caricatures of America: Slaveholder and cowhide, with the motto, “Have n't I a right to wallop my nigger?" Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still We share with you its good and ill, Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave The gift of saints and martyrs. Our very sins and follies teach Our kindred frail and human : We carp at faults with bitter speech, We bowed the heart, if not the knee, Join hands with the oppressor? And is it Christian England cheers And must she run, despite the tears O black disgrace! O shame and loss The pirate's skull-bone blazon! ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862. HEN first I saw our banner wave WHEN Above the nation's council-hall, I heard beneath its marble wall The clanking fetters of the slave! In the foul market-place I stood, And saw the Christian mother sold, |