Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

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

ONE, gone-sold and gone,

Go

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

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

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Gone, gone

- sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.

Gone, gone sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, -
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone-sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

Oh, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,

aint with toil, and racked with pain, To their cheerless homes again

There no brother's voice shall greet them
There no father's welcome meet them.

Gone, gone - sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

[blocks in formation]

19

From the cool spring where they drank-
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank-
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there,

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

WRITTEN ON READING THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR RITNER, OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1836.

Τ

HANK God for the token! - one lip is still free

One spirit untrammelled — unbending one knee!
Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm,
Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm;
When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God,
Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood;
When the recreant North has forgotten her trust,
And the lip of her honor is low in the dust,

Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken!
Thank God, that one man, as a freeman has spoken!

[ocr errors]

O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown!
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone!
To the land of the South of the charter and chain
Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain;
Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips!
Where "chivalric" honor means really no more
Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor!
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high,

And the words which he utters are- WORSHIP, OR DIE!

Right onward, oh, speed it!

Wherever the blood

Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God;

Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining;

Wherever the lash of the driver is twining;
Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart,
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart;
Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind,

In silence and darkness, the God-given mind;
There, God speed it onward!-its truth will be felt
The bonds shall be loosened - the iron shall melt!

And oh, will the land where the free soul of PENN
Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen
Will the land where a BENEZET's spirit went forth
To the peeled, and the meted, and outcast of Earth -
Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first
From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst-
Where first for the wronged and the weak of their kind,
The Christian and statesman their efforts combined
Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain?
Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain ?

No, RITNER!

her "Friends," at thy warning shall stand Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band; Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime; Turning back from the cavil of creeds, to unite Once again for the poor in defence of the Right; Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong, Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along; Unappalled by the danger, the shame and the pain, And counting each trial for Truth as their gain!

And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true,
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due;
Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine,
On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine
The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to brave
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave:
Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South
One brow for the brand for the padlock one mouth?
They cater to tyrants? They rivet the chain,
Which their fathers smote off, on the negro again?

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

No, never! one voice, like the sound in the cloud,
When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud,
Wherever the foot of the freeman hath pressed
From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the West,
On the South-going breezes shall deepen and grow
Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble below!

« PreviousContinue »