TO W. L. G. And lightly and freely her dark tresses play O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they ! Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-door, The haughty and rich to the humble and poor? 'Tis the great Southern planter, -the master who waves His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves. "Nay, Ellen,-for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin, Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin; Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel, Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel! "But thou art too lovely and precious a gem To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them, — For shame, Ellen, shame, -cast thy bondage aside, And away to the South, as my blessing and pride. 63 I love thee with a brother's love, I feel my pulses thrill, To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. My heart hath leaped to answer thine, As leaps the warrior's at the shine They tell me thou art rash and vain A searcher after fame; That thou art striving but to gain A long-enduring name; That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand Have I not known thee well, and read And watched the trials which have made Thy human spirit strong? And shall the slanderer's demon breath To dim the sunshine of my faith Go on, the dagger's point may glare Then onward with a martyr's zeal; When man to man no more shall kneel, 1833. SONG OF THE FREE. PRIDE of New England! Soul of our fathers! Shrink we all craven-like, Where's the New-Englander Back with the Southerner's Up to our altars, then, Haste we, and summon Courage and loveliness, Manhood and woman! Deep let our pledges be: Freedom forever! Truce with oppression, Never, oh! never! If we have whispered truth, CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match, Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch. So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest, -the hunting of men ! Gay luck to our hunters! - how nobly they ride In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! -The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind, Just screening the politic statesman behind, The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer, The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there. And woman, -kind woman, widow, and maid, - wife, For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid: The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still, Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill. Haste,-alms for our hunters! the hunted once more Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore: What right have they here in the home of the white, Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right? Ho!alms for the hunters! or never again Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men! Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel's Ark of light! What! preach and kidnap men? Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor? Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then Bolt hard the captive's door? What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and save The homeless and the outcast, - fettering down The tasked and plundered slave ! Pilate and Herod, friends! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine ! Just God and holy! is that church, which lends Strength to the spoiler, thine? Paid hypocrites, who turn Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book Of those high words of truth which search and burn In warning and rebuke; Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, Ye pile your own full board. How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, And in thy name, for robbery and wrong At thy own altars pray? Is not thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? Shall not the living God of all the earth, And heaven above, do right? Woe, then, to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down! To all who plunder from the immortal mind Its bright and glorious crown! The outcast and the poor. But wisely shut the ray Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart, And to her darkened mind alone impart One stern command, - OBEY! So shalt thou deftly raise The market price of human flesh; and while On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile, Thy church shall praise. Grave, reverend men shall tell From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, While in that vile South Sodom first and best, Thy poor disciples sell. O, shame! the Moslem thrall, Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels, While turning to the sacred Kebla feels His fetters break and fall. Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne Their inmates into day; But our poor slave in vain furns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes, Its rites will only swell his market price, And rivet on his chain. God of all right! how long 67 Shall priestly robbers at thine altar stand, Lifting in prayer to thee, the bloody hand And haughty brow of wrong? O, from the fields of cane, From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cell, From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain, Hoarse, horrible, and strong, Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, Filling the arches of the holiow sky, HOW LONG, O GOD, HOW LONG? |