MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone, Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia 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, 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; 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, The voice of free, broad Middlesex,- of thousands as of one, - From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray, - The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters, - 81 Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn; We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch within But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given THE RELIC. [PENNSYLVANIA HALL, dedicated to Free Discussion and the cause of human liberty, was destroyed by a mob in 1838. The following was written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work which the fire had spared.] THE BRANDED HAND. Wreck of a temple, unprofaned, - Where Mercy's voice of love was plead- For human hearts in bondage bleeding! Where, midst the sound of rushing feet And curses on the night-air flung, 3at temple now in ruin lies! - Its black and roofless hall, But from that ruin, as of old, 83 The fire-scorched stones themselves And from their ashes white and cold A voice which slavery cannot kill And even this relic from thy shrine, And, grasping it, methinks I feel And not unlike that mystic rod, Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, Which opened, in the strength of God, It yet may point the bondman's way, THE BRANDED HAND. 1846. WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim To make God's truth thy falsehood, his holiest work thy shame? They change to wrong the duty which God hath written out They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown, Why, that brand is highest honor!- than its traces never yet As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back from Syrian wan The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span, He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, 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, And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt ; In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below, That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is Man! That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the wave! ་ Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air, - yore, And the tyrants of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, TO FANEUIL HALL. O, for God and duty stand, Whoso shrinks or falters now, Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race, None for traitors false and base. Perish party, perish clan; Strike together while ye can, Like the arm of one strong man. Like that angel's voice sublime, With one heart and with one mouth, "What though Issachar be strong! "Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done. "Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strain Link by link shall snap in twain. "Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Bind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope ! "Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze. "Take your land of sun and bloom; Only leave to Freedom room For her plough, and forge, and loom; "Take your slavery-blackened vales; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails. "Boldly, or, with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; Break the Union's mighty heart; "Work the ruin, if ye will; Pluck upon your heads an ill Which shall grow and deepen still. 85 "With your bondman's right arm bare, With his heart of black despair, Stand alone, if stand ye dare! "Onward with your fell design; Dig the gulf and draw the line: Fire beneath your feet the mine: Deeply, when the wide abyss By the hearth, and in the bed, "And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soil Like a fire shall burn and spoil. "Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys flow; "And when vengeance clouds your skies, Hither shall ye turn your eyes, "We but ask our rocky strand, "Valleys by the slave untrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' God!" TO FANEUIL HALL. 1844. |