For fields of duty, opening wide, Where all our powers Are tasked the eager steps to guide Of millions on a path untried: THE SLAVE IS OURS! Ours by traditions dear and old, Our wards to cherish and uphold, And cast their freedom in the mould Of Christian grace. And we may tread the sick-bed floors Where strong men pine, And, down the groaning corridors, Pour freely from our liberal stores The oil and wine. Who murmurs that in these dark days His lot is cast? God's hand within the shadow lays The stones whereon His gates of praise Shall rise at last. Turn and o'erturn, O outstretched Hand! The Nor stint, nor stay; years have never dropped their sand On mortal issue vast and grand As ours to-day. Already, on the sable ground Of man's despair Is Freedom's glorious picture found O, small shall seem all sacrifice And pain and loss, When God shall wipe the weeping eyes, For suffering give the victor's prize, The crown for cross! AT PORT ROYAL. HE tent-lights glimmer on the land, The ship-lights on the sea; The night-wind smooths with drifting sand Our track on lone Tybee. At last our grating keels outslide, And while we ride the land-locked tide, For dear the bondman holds his gifts Of music and of song: The gold that kindly Nature sifts Among his sands of wrong; The power to make his toiling days The quaint relief of mirth that plays Another glow than sunset's fire The land is wild with fear and hate, From hand to hand, from gate to gate, The lurid glow falls strong across Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss That fire yon blazing piles. With oar-strokes timing to their song, They weave in simple lays The pathos of remembered wrong, The hope of better days, The triumph-note that Miriam sung, Softening with Afric's mellow tongue SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN. O, praise an' tanks! De Lord he come To set de people free; An' massa tink it day ob doom, An' we ob jubilee. De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves He jus’ as ’trong as den ; |