He tink we lub him so before,

We lub him better free.

De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
He'll gib de rice an' corn:

O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!

So sing our dusky gondoliers;
And with a secret pain,

And smiles that seem akin to tears,

We hear the wild refrain.

We dare not share the negro's trust,

Nor yet his hope deny ;

We only know that God is just,
And every wrong shall die.

Rude seems the song; each swarthy face, Flame-lighted, ruder still:

We start to think that hapless race
Must shape our good or ill;

That laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;

And, close as sin and suffering joined,

We march to Fate abreast.

Sing on, poor hearts! your chant shall be Our sign of blight or bloom,—

The Vala-song of Liberty,

Or death-rune of our doom!

U

P from the meadows rich with corn,

Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,

Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall When Lee marched over the mountain wall,

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,

She took

up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic-window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right

He glanced: the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!" the dust-brown ranks stood fast.

"Fire!" out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag," she said.