Deep as I felt, and stern and strong, In words which Prudence smothered long, My soul spoke out against the wrong; Not mine alone the task to speak But, mingled in the conflict warm, To brave Opinion's settled frown, Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way, Cool shadows on the greensward lay, Flowers swung upon the bending spray. And, broad and bright, on either hand, Stretched the green slopes ofFairy-land, With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned; 91 Whence voices called me like the flow Which on the listener's ear will grow, Of forest streamlets soft and low. And gentle eyes, which still retain Their picture on the heart and brain, Smiled, beckoning from that path of pain. In vain! - nor dream, nor rest, nor pause Remain for him who round him draws The battered mail of Freedom's cause. From Of young Romance, and gentle Thought, Where storm and tumult enter not, From each fair altar, where belong The offerings Love requires of Song In homage to her bright-eyed throng, With soul and strength, with heart and hand, I turned to Freedom's struggling band,— To the sad Helots of our land. What marvel then that Fame should turn Her notes of praise to those of scorn, Her gifts reclaimed, - her smiles withdrawn? The simple burst of tenderest feeling Better than Glory's pomp will be Something of Time which may invite And when the summer winds shall sweep With their light wings my place of sleep, And mosses round my headstone creep, If still, as Freedom's rallying sign, If words my lips once uttered still, Perchance with joy the soul may learn A marvellous joy that even then, Take, lady, then, the gift I bring, Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay, And if it deepens in thy mind If to their strong appeals which come Though dark the hands upraised to the Not vainly on thy gentle shrine, Where Love, and Mirth, and Friend ship twine Their varied gifts, I offer mine. TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY. In words of cheer and bugle blow Their breath upon the darkness passed. A mighty host, on either hand, Stood waiting for the dawn of day To crush like reeds our feeble band; The morn has come, -and where are they? Troop after troop their line forsakes; With peace-white banners waving free, And from our own the glad shoutbreaks, Of Freedom and Fraternity! Like mist before the growing light, The hostile cohorts melt away; Our frowning foemen of the night Are brothers at the dawn of day! As unto these repentant ones We open wide our toil-worn ranks, Along our line a murmur runs Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks. Sound for the onset ! - Blast on blast! Till Slavery's minions cower and quail : One charge of fire shall drive them fast Like chaff before our Northern gale! O prisoners in your house of pain, Dumb, toiling millions, bound and sold, Look! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain, The Lord's delivering hand behold! Above the tyrant's pride of power, Hang, smaking, for a fiercer fall. Awake! awake! my Fatherland! It is thy Northern light that shines; This stirring march of Freedom's band The storm-song of thy mountain pines. Wake, dwellers where the day expires! And hear, in winds that sweep your lakes And fan your prairies' roaring fires, The signal-call that Freedom makes! 93 TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY. GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest! The flowers of Eden round thee blowing, And on thine ear the murmurs blest And wandering by that sacred river, Whose streams of holiness make glad The city of our God forever! Gentlest of spirits!-not for thee Our tears are shed, our sighs are given. Why mourn to know thou art a free Partaker of the joys of Heaven? Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death; And beautiful as sky and earth, When autumn's sun is downward going The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing! But woe for us! who linger still With feebler strength and hearts less lowly, And minds less steadfast to the will Of Him whose every work is holy. And for the outcast and forsaken, Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, Our weaker sympathies awaken. Darkly upon our struggling way The storm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keep- O for that hidden strength which can And constant in the hour of trial, In meekness and in self-denial. O for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining, By man deserted and reviled, Even where the fires of Hate were The unquailing eye of innocence Alone upon the oppressor turning ! O loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee. The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee; And grateful tears, like summer rain, Shall come the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine Recalling memories sweet and holy ! O for the death the righteous die! An end, like autumn's day declining, On human hearts, as on the sky, With holier, tenderer beauty shining; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening Heaven! As if that pure and blessed light,. From off the Eternal altar flowing, Were bathing, in its upward flight, The spirit to its worship going! ΤΟ A SOUTHERN STATESMAN. 1846. Is this thy voice, whose treble notes of fear Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear, Actæon-like, the bay of thine own hounds, Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds? Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand, With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack, To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land, Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back, These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track? Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue, Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung, O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man? How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting, And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting, Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star! The Fates are just; they give us but Called demons up his water-jars to fill; Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, kept pouring still, In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, Faster and faster were the buckets brought, Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned! So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in, From out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin, Of the stormed city and the ghastly plain, Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, LINES. A myriad-handed Aztec host may pour, And swarthy South with pallid North combine Back on thyself to turn thy dark design, LINES, WRITTEN ON THE ADOPTION OF PINCKNEY'S RESOLUTIONS, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND THE PASSAGE OF CALHOUN'S BILL FOR EXCLUDING PAPERS WRITTEN OR PRINTED, TOUCHING THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY FROM THE U. S. POST-OFFICE," IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone? Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone? Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us 95 |