No, by my faith in God's word!"

Half rose the ghost, and half drew out

The ghost of his old broadsword,

Then thrust it slowly back again,

66

And said, with reverent gesture,

'No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain

The hem of thy white vesture.

"I feel the soul in me draw near The mount of prophesying;

In this bleak wilderness I hear

A John the Baptist crying;

Far in the east I see upleap

The streaks of first forewarning,

And they who sowed the light shall reap
The golden sheaves of morning.

"Child of our travail and our woe, Light in our day of sorrow, Through my rapt spirit I foreknow

The glory of thy morrow;

I hear great steps, that through the shade

Draw nigher still and nigher,

And voices call like that which bade
The prophet come up higher."

I looked, no form mine eyes could find,
I heard the red cock crowing,
And through my window-chinks the wind

A dismal tune was blowing;

Thought I, My neighbour Buckingham

Hath somewhat in him gritty,

Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham,

And he will print my ditty.

ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON.

Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who

can,

The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man

truly man;

Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or with ease

Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these!

I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy

breast

Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me

rest;

And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the

To those who won our liberty, the heroes dead and

gone,

While we look coldly on, and see law-shielded ruffians

slay

The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of

to-day!

Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the

wind,

The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind,

That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand

at rest,

While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the

breast!

Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first;

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most ac

cursed;

Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the

sod,

Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God!

We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer,

more,

To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's

core ;

Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but

then

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us

men.

He 's true to God who 's true to man; wherever wrong

is done,

To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-behold

ing sun,