This eBook was produced by David Widger ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER CONTENTS: DERNE A SABBATH SCENE IN THE EVIL DAY MOLOCH IN STATE STREET OFFICIAL PIETY THE RENDITION ARISEN AT LAST THE HASCHISH FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN BURIAL OF BARBER TO PENNSYLVANIA LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA A SONG FOR THE TIME WHAT OF THE DAY? A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS THE PANORAMA ON A PRAYER-BOOK THE SUMMONS TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD DERNE. The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine Americans, forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats of hardihood and daring which have in all ages attracted the admiration of the multitude. The higher and holier heroism of Christian self-denial and sacrifice, in the humble walks of private duty, is seldom so well appreciated. NIGHT on the city of the Moor! On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore, On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock The narrow harbor-gates unlock, On corsair's galley, carack tall, And plundered Christian caraval! The sounds of Moslem life are still; No mule-bell tinkles down the hill; Stretched in the broad court of the khan, The dusty Bornou caravan Lies heaped in slumber, beast and man; The Sheik is dreaming in his tent, His noisy Arab tongue o'erspent; The kiosk's glimmering lights are gone, The merchant with his wares withdrawn; Rough pillowed on some pirate breast, The dancing-girl has sunk to rest; And, save where measured footsteps fall Along the Bashaw's guarded wall, Or where, like some bad dream, the Jew Creeps stealthily his quarter through, Or counts with fear his golden heaps, The City of the Corsair sleeps. But where yon prison long and low Stands black against the pale star-glow, Chafed by the ceaseless wash of waves, There watch and pine the Christian slaves; Rough-bearded men, whose far-off wives Wear out with grief their lonely lives; And youth, still flashing from his eyes The clear blue of New England skies, A treasured lock of whose soft hair Now wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer; Or, worn upon some maiden breast, Stirs with the loving heart's unrest. A bitter cup each life must drain, The groaning earth is cursed with pain, And, like the scroll the angel bore The shuddering Hebrew seer before, O'erwrit alike, without, within, With all the woes which follow sin; But, bitterest of the ills beneath Whose load man totters down to death, Is that which plucks the regal crown Of Freedom from his forehead down, And snatches from his powerless hand The sceptred sign of self-command, Effacing with the chain and rod The image and the seal of God; Till from his nature, day by day, The manly virtues fall away, And leave him naked, blind and mute, The godlike merging in the brute! Why mourn the quiet ones who die Beneath affection's tender eye, Unto their household and their kin Like ripened corn-sheaves gathered in? O weeper, from that tranquil sod, That holy harvest-home of God, Turn to the quick and suffering, shed Thy tears upon the living dead Thank God above thy dear ones' graves, They sleep with Him, they are not slaves. What dark mass, down the mountain-sides Swift-pouring, like a stream divides? A long, loose, straggling caravan, Camel and horse and armed man. The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'er Its grave of waters to the shore, Lights tip that mountain cavalcade, And gleams from gun and spear and blade Near and more near! now o'er them falls The shadow of the city walls. Hark to the sentry's challenge, drowned In the fierce trumpet's charging sound! The rush of men, the musket's peal, The short, sharp clang of meeting steel! Vain, Moslem, vain thy lifeblood poured So freely on thy foeman's sword! Not to the swift nor to the strong The battles of the right belong; For he who strikes for Freedom wears The armor of the captive's prayers, And Nature proffers to his cause The strength of her eternal laws; While he whose arm essays to bind And herd with common brutes his kind Strives evermore at fearful odds With Nature and the jealous gods, And dares the dread recoil which late Or soon their right shall vindicate. 'T is done, the horned crescent falls The star-flag flouts the broken walls Joy to the captive husband! joy To thy sick heart, O brown-locked boy! In sullen wrath the conquered Moor Wide open flings your dungeon-door, And leaves ye free from cell and chain, The owners of yourselves again. Dark as his allies desert-born, Soiled with the battle's stain, and worn With the long marches of his band Through hottest wastes of rock and sand, Scorched by the sun and furnace-breath Of the red desert's wind of death, With welcome words and grasping hands, The victor and deliverer stands! The tale is one of distant skies; The dust of half a century lies Upon it; yet its hero's name Still lingers on the lips of Fame. Men speak the praise of him who gave Deliverance to the Moorman's slave, Yet dare to brand with shame and crime The heroes of our land and time,-- The self-forgetful ones, who stake Home, name, and life for Freedom's sake. God mend his heart who cannot feel The impulse of a holy zeal, And sees not, with his sordid eyes, The beauty of self-sacrifice Though in the sacred place he stands, Uplifting consecrated hands, Unworthy are his lips to tell Of Jesus' martyr-miracle, Or name aright that dread embrace Of suffering for a fallen race! 1850. A SABBATH SCENE. This poem finds its justification in the readiness with which, even in the North, clergymen urged the prompt execution of the Fugitive Slave Law as a Christian duty, and defended the system of slavery as a Bible institution. SCARCE had the solemn Sabbath-bell Ceased quivering in the steeple, Scarce had the parson to his desk Walked stately through his people, When down the summer-shaded street A wasted female figure, With dusky brow and naked feet, Came rushing wild and eager. She saw the white spire through the trees, She heard the sweet hymn swelling O pitying Christ! a refuge give That poor one in Thy dwelling! Like a scared fawn before the hounds, Right up the aisle she glided, While close behind her, whip in hand, A lank-haired hunter strided. She raised a keen and bitter cry, To Heaven and Earth appealing; Were manhood's generous pulses dead? Had woman's heart no feeling? A score of stout hands rose between The hunter and the flying: Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyes Flashed tearful, yet defying. "Who dares profane this house and day?" Cried out the angry pastor. "Why, bless your soul, the wench's a slave, And I'm her lord and master! "I've law and gospel on my side, And who shall dare refuse me?" Down came the parson, bowing low, "My good sir, pray excuse me! "Of course I know your right divine To own and work and whip her; Quick, deacon, throw that Polyglott Before the wench, and trip her!" Plump dropped the holy tome, and o'er Its sacred pages stumbling, Bound hand and foot, a slave once more, The hapless wretch lay trembling. I saw the parson tie the knots, The while his flock addressing, The Scriptural claims of slavery With text on text impressing. "Although," said he, "on Sabbath day All secular occupations Are deadly sins, we must fulfil Our moral obligations: "And this commends itself as one To every conscience tender; As Paul sent back Onesimus, My Christian friends, we send her!" Shriek rose on shriek,--the Sabbath air Her wild cries tore asunder; I listened, with hushed breath, to hear God answering with his thunder! All still! the very altar's cloth Had smothered down her shrieking, And, dumb, she turned from face to face, For human pity seeking! I saw her dragged along the aisle, Her shackles harshly clanking; I heard the parson, over all, The Lord devoutly thanking! My brain took fire: "Is this," I cried, "The end of prayer and preaching? Then down with pulpit, down with priest, And give us Nature's teaching! "Foul shame and scorn be on ye all Who turn the good to evil, And steal the Bible, from the Lord, To give it to the Devil! "Than garbled text or parchment law I own a statute higher; And God is true, though every book And every man's a liar!" Just then I felt the deacon's hand In wrath my coattail seize on; I heard the priest cry, "Infidel!" The lawyer mutter, "Treason!" I started up,--where now were church, Slave, master, priest, and people? I only heard the supper-bell, Instead of clanging steeple. But, on the open window's sill, O'er which the white blooms drifted, The pages of a good old Book The wind of summer lifted, And flower and vine, like angel wings Around the Holy Mother, Waved softly there, as if God's truth And Mercy kissed each other. And freely from the cherry-bough Above the casement swinging, With golden bosom to the sun, The oriole was singing. As bird and flower made plain of old The lesson of the Teacher, So now I heard the written Word Interpreted by Nature. For to my ear methought the breeze Bore Freedom's blessed word on; Thus saith the Lord: Break every yoke, Undo the heavy burden 1850. IN THE EVIL DAYS. This and the four following poems have special reference to that darkest hour in the aggression of slavery which preceded the dawn of a better day, when the conscience of the people was roused to action. THE evil days have come, the poor Are made a prey; Bar up the hospitable door, Put out the fire-lights, point no more The wanderer's way. For Pity now is crime; the chain Which binds our States Is melted at her hearth in twain, Is rusted by her tears' soft rain Close up her gates. Our Union, like a glacier stirred By voice below, Or bell of kine, or wing of bird, A beggar's crust, a kindly word May overthrow! Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast Our blood and name; Bursting its century-bolted frost, Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast Cries out for shame! Oh for the open firmament, The prairie free, The desert hillside, cavern-rent, The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent, The Bushman's tree! Than web of Persian loom most rare, Or soft divan, Better the rough rock, bleak and bare, Or hollow tree, which man may share With suffering man. I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law, Let Love be dumb; Clasping her liberal hands in awe, Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw From hearth and home." I hear another voice: "The poor Are thine to feed; Turn not the outcast from thy door, Nor give to bonds and wrong once more Whom God hath freed." Dear Lord! between that law and Thee No choice remains; Yet not untrue to man's decree, Though spurning its rewards, is he Who bears its pains. Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast And threatening word; I read the lesson of the Past, That firm endurance wins at last More than the sword. O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou So calm and strong! Lend strength to weakness, teach us how The sleepless eyes of God look through This night of wrong 1850. MOLOCH IN STATE STREET. In a foot-note of the Report of the Senate of Massachusetts on the case of the arrest and return to bondage of the fugitive slave Thomas Sims it is stated that--"It would have been impossible for the U. S. marshal thus successfully to have resisted the law of the State, without the assistance of the municipal authorities of Boston, and the countenance and support of a numerous, wealthy, and powerful body of citizens. It was in evidence that 1500 of the most wealthy and respectable citizens-merchants, bankers, and others--volunteered their services to aid the marshal on this occasion. . . . No watch was kept upon the doings of the marshal, and while the State officers slept, after the moon had gone down, in the darkest hour before daybreak, the accused was taken out of our jurisdiction by the armed police of the city of Boston." THE moon has set: while yet the dawn Breaks cold and gray, Between the midnight and the morn Bear off your prey! On, swift and still! the conscious street Is panged and stirred; Tread light! that fall of serried feet The dead have heard! The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins Gushed where ye tread; Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stains Blush darkly red! Beneath the slowly waning stars And whitening day, What stern and awful presence bars That sacred way? What faces frown upon ye, dark With shame and pain? Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark? Is that young Vane? Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on With mocking cheer? Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson, And Gage are here! For ready mart or favoring blast Through Moloch's fire, Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed The Tyrian sire. Ye make that ancient sacrifice Of Mail to Gain, Your traffic thrives, where Freedom dies, Beneath the chain. Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scorn And hate, is near; How think ye freemen, mountain-born, The tale will hear? Thank God! our mother State can yet Her fame retrieve; To you and to your children let The scandal cleave. Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press, Make gods of gold; Let honor, truth, and manliness Like wares be sold. Your hoards are great, your walls are strong, But God is just; The gilded chambers built by wrong Invite the rust. What! know ye not the gains of Crime Are dust and dross; Its ventures on the waves of time Foredoomed to loss! And still the Pilgrim State remains What she hath been; Her inland hills, her seaward plains, Still nurture men! Nor wholly lost the fallen mart; Her olden blood Through many a free and generous heart Still pours its flood. That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet, Shall know no check, Till a free people's foot is set On Slavery's neck. Even now, the peal of bell and gun, And hills aflame, Tell of the first great triumph won In Freedom's name. [10] The long night dies: the welcome gray Of dawn we see; Speed up the heavens thy perfect day, God of the free! 1851. OFFICIAL PIETY. Suggested by reading a state paper, wherein the higher law is invoked to sustain the lower one. A Pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh? Sin in high places has become devout, Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety! The pirate, watching from his bloody deck The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold Of Acapulco, holding death in check While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told; The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss From his own carbine, glancing still abroad For some new victim, offering thanks to God! Rome, listening at her altars to the cry Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high, Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, "Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!" What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack? Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase And saintly posture, gives to God the praise And honor of the monstrous progeny. What marvel, then, in our own time to see His old devices, smoothly acted o'er,-- Official piety, locking fast the door Of Hope against three million soups of men,-- Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed,--and then, With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee, Whining a prayer for help to hide the key! 1853. THE RENDITION. On the 2d of June, 1854, Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, after being under arrest for ten days in the Boston Court House, was remanded to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act, and taken down State Street to a steamer chartered by the United States Government, under guard of United States troops and artillery, Massachusetts militia and Boston police. Public excitement ran high, a futile attempt to rescue Burns having been made during his confinement, and the streets were crowded with tens of thousands of people, of whom many came from other towns and cities of the State to witness the humiliating spectacle. I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, I saw an earnest look beseech, And rather by that look than speech My neighbor told me all. And, as I thought of Liberty Marched handcuffed down that sworded street, The solid earth beneath my feet Reeled fluid as the sea. I felt a sense of bitter loss,-- Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, And loathing fear, as if my path A serpent stretched across. All love of home, all pride of place, All generous confidence and trust, Sank smothering in that deep disgust And anguish of disgrace. Down on my native hills of June, And home's green quiet, hiding all, Fell sudden darkness like the fall Of midnight upon noon. And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God The blasphemy of wrong. "O Mother, from thy memories proud, Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, Lend this dead air a breeze of health, And smite with stars this cloud. "Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, Rise awful in thy strength," I said; Ah me! I spake but to the dead; I stood upon her grave! 6th mo., 1854. ARISEN AT LAST. On the passage of the bill to protect the rights and liberties of the people of the State against the Fugitive Slave Act. I SAID I stood upon thy grave, My Mother State, when last the moon Of blossoms clomb the skies of June. And, scattering ashes on my head, I wore, undreaming of relief, The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. Again that moon of blossoms shines On leaf and flower and folded wing, And thou hast risen with the spring! Once more thy strong maternal arms Are round about thy children flung,-- A lioness that guards her young! No threat is on thy closed lips, But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from its light. Southward the baffled robber's track Henceforth runs only; hereaway, The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, His first low howl shall downward draw The thunder of thy righteous law. Not mindless of thy trade and gain, But, acting on the wiser plan, Thou'rt grown conservative of man. So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, Dream-painted on the sightless eyes Of him who sang of Paradise,-- The vision of a Christian man, In virtue, as in stature great Embodied in a Christian State. And thou, amidst thy sisterhood Forbearing long, yet standing fast, Shalt win their grateful thanks at last; When North and South shall strive no more, And all their feuds and fears be lost In Freedom's holy Pentecost. 6th mo., 1855. THE HASCHISH. OF all that Orient lands can vaunt Of marvels with our own competing, The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what will follow on its eating. What pictures to the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances! Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances! The poppy visions of Cathay, The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian; The wizard lights and demon play Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian! The Mollah and the Christian dog Change place in mad metempsychosis; The Muezzin climbs the synagogue, The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses! The Arab by his desert well Sits choosing from some Caliph's daughters, And hears his single camel's bell Sound welcome to his regal quarters. The Koran's reader makes complaint Of Shitan dancing on and off it; The robber offers alms, the saint Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet. Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes; But we have one ordained to beat it, The Haschish of the West, which makes Or fools or knaves of all who eat it. The preacher eats, and straight appears His Bible in a new translation; Its angels negro overseers, And Heaven itself a snug plantation! The man of peace, about whose dreams The sweet millennial angels cluster, Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes, A raving Cuban filibuster! The noisiest Democrat, with ease, It turns to Slavery's parish beadle; The shrewdest statesman eats and sees Due southward point the polar needle. The Judge partakes, and sits erelong Upon his bench a railing blackguard; Decides off-hand that right is wrong, And reads the ten commandments backward. O potent plant! so rare a taste Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten; The hempen Haschish of the East Is powerless to our Western Cotton! 1854. FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE. Inscribed to friends under arrest for treason against the slave power. THE age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk; with blood too pale and tame To pay the debt they owe to shame; Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep Six days to Mammon, one to Cant. In such a time, give thanks to God, That somewhat of the holy rage With which the prophets in their age On all its decent seemings trod, Has set your feet upon the lie, That man and ox and soul and clod Are market stock to sell and buy! The hot words from your lips, my own, To caution trained, might not repeat; But if some tares among the wheat Of generous thought and deed were sown, No common wrong provoked your zeal; The silken gauntlet that is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel. The brave old strife the fathers saw For Freedom calls for men again Like those who battled not in vain For England's Charter, Alfred's law; And right of speech and trial just Wage in your name their ancient war With venal courts and perjured trust. God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, They touch the shining hills of day; The evil cannot brook delay, The good can well afford to wait. Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; Ye have the future grand and great, The safe appeal of Truth to Time! 1855. THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS. This poem and the three following were called out by the popular movement of Free State men to occupy the territory of Kansas, and by the use of the great democratic weapon--an over-powering majority--to settle the conflict on that ground between Freedom and Slavery. The opponents of the movement used another kind of weapon. WE cross the prairie as of old The pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free! We go to rear a wall of men On Freedom's southern line, And plant beside the cotton-tree The rugged Northern pine! We're flowing from our native hills As our free rivers flow; The blessing of our Mother-land Is on us as we go. We go to plant her common schools, On distant prairie swells, And give the Sabbaths of the wild The music of her bells. Upbearing, like the Ark of old, The Bible in our van, We go to test the truth of God Against the fraud of man. No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun. We'll tread the prairie as of old Our fathers sailed the sea, And make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free! 1854. LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN. DOUGLAS MISSION, August, 1854, LAST week--the Lord be praised for all His mercies To His unworthy servant!--I arrived Safe at the Mission, via Westport; where I tarried over night, to aid in forming A Vigilance Committee, to send back, In shirts of tar, and feather-doublets quilted With forty stripes save one, all Yankee comers, Uncircumcised and Gentile, aliens from The Commonwealth of Israel, who despise The prize of the high calling of the saints, Who plant amidst this heathen wilderness Pure gospel institutions, sanctified By patriarchal use. The meeting opened With prayer, as was most fitting. Half an hour, Or thereaway, I groaned, and strove, and wrestled, As Jacob did at Penuel, till the power Fell on the people, and they cried 'Amen!' "Glory to God!" and stamped and clapped their hands; And the rough river boatmen wiped their eyes; "Go it, old hoss!" they cried, and cursed the niggers-- Fulfilling thus the word of prophecy, "Cursed be Cannan." After prayer, the meeting Chose a committee--good and pious men-- A Presbyterian Elder, Baptist deacon, A local preacher, three or four class-leaders, Anxious inquirers, and renewed backsliders, A score in all--to watch the river ferry, (As they of old did watch the fords of Jordan,) And cut off all whose Yankee tongues refuse The Shibboleth of the Nebraska bill. And then, in answer to repeated calls, I gave a brief account of what I saw In Washington; and truly many hearts Rejoiced to know the President, and you And all the Cabinet regularly hear The gospel message of a Sunday morning, Drinking with thirsty souls of the sincere Milk of the Word. Glory! Amen, and Selah! Here, at the Mission, all things have gone well The brother who, throughout my absence, acted As overseer, assures me that the crops Never were better. I have lost one negro, A first-rate hand, but obstinate and sullen. He ran away some time last spring, and hid In the river timber. There my Indian converts Found him, and treed and shot him. For the rest, The heathens round about begin to feel The influence of our pious ministrations And works of love; and some of them already Have purchased negroes, and are settling down As sober Christians! Bless the Lord for this! I know it will rejoice you. You, I hear, Are on the eve of visiting Chicago, To fight with the wild beasts of Ephesus, Long John, and Dutch Free-Soilers. May your arm Be clothed with strength, and on your tongue be found The sweet oil of persuasion. So desires Your brother and co-laborer. Amen! P.S. All's lost. Even while I write these lines, The Yankee abolitionists are coming Upon us like a flood--grim, stalwart men, Each face set like a flint of Plymouth Rock Against our institutions--staking out Their farm lots on the wooded Wakarusa, Or squatting by the mellow-bottomed Kansas; The pioneers of mightier multitudes, The small rain-patter, ere the thunder shower Drowns the dry prairies. Hope from man is not. Oh, for a quiet berth at Washington, Snug naval chaplaincy, or clerkship, where These rumors of free labor and free soil Might never meet me more. Better to be Door-keeper in the White House, than to dwell Amidst these Yankee tents, that, whitening, show On the green prairie like a fleet becalmed. Methinks I hear a voice come up the river From those far bayous, where the alligators Mount guard around the camping filibusters "Shake off the dust of Kansas. Turn to Cuba-- (That golden orange just about to fall, O'er-ripe, into the Democratic lap;) Keep pace with Providence, or, as we say, Manifest destiny. Go forth and follow The message of our gospel, thither borne Upon the point of Quitman's bowie-knife, And the persuasive lips of Colt's revolvers. There may'st thou, underneath thy vine and figtree, Watch thy increase of sugar cane and negroes, Calm as a patriarch in his eastern tent!" Amen: So mote it be. So prays your friend. BURIAL OF BARBER. Thomas Barber was shot December 6, 1855, near Lawrence, Kansas. BEAR him, comrades, to his grave; Never over one more brave Shall the prairie grasses weep, In the ages yet to come, When the millions in our room, What we sow in tears, shall reap. Bear him up the icy hill, With the Kansas, frozen still As his noble heart, below, And the land he came to till With a freeman's thews and will, And his poor hut roofed with snow. One more look of that dead face, Of his murder's ghastly trace! One more kiss, O widowed one Lay your left hands on his brow, Lift your right hands up, and vow That his work shall yet be done. Patience, friends! The eye of God Every path by Murder trod Watches, lidless, day and night; And the dead man in his shroud, And his widow weeping loud, And our hearts, are in His sight. Every deadly threat that swells With the roar of gambling hells, Every brutal jest and jeer, Every wicked thought and plan Of the cruel heart of man, Though but whispered, He can hear! We in suffering, they in crime, Wait the just award of time, Wait the vengeance that is due; Not in vain a heart shall break, Not a tear for Freedom's sake Fall unheeded: God is true. While the flag with stars bedecked Threatens where it should protect, And the Law shakes Hands with Crime, What is left us but to wait, Match our patience to our fate, And abide the better time? Patience, friends! The human heart Everywhere shall take our part, Everywhere for us shall pray; On our side are nature's laws, And God's life is in the cause That we suffer for to-day. Well to suffer is divine; Pass the watchword down the line, Pass the countersign: "Endure." Not to him who rashly dares, But to him who nobly bears, Is the victor's garland sure. Frozen earth to frozen breast, Lay our slain one down to rest; Lay him down in hope and faith, And above the broken sod, Once again, to Freedom's God, Pledge ourselves for life or death, That the State whose walls we lay, In our blood and tears, to-day, Shall be free from bonds of shame, And our goodly land untrod By the feet of Slavery, shod With cursing as with flame! Plant the Buckeye on his grave, For the hunter of the slave In its shadow cannot rest; I And let martyr mound and tree Be our pledge and guaranty Of the freedom of the West! 1856. TO PENNSYLVANIA. O STATE prayer-founded! never hung Such choice upon a people's tongue, Such power to bless or ban, As that which makes thy whisper Fate, For which on thee the centuries wait, And destinies of man! Across thy Alleghanian chain, With groanings from a land in pain, The west-wind finds its way: Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood The crying of thy children's blood Is in thy ears to-day! And unto thee in Freedom's hour Of sorest need God gives the power To ruin or to save; To wound or heal, to blight or bless With fertile field or wilderness, A free home or a grave! Then let thy virtue match the crime, Rise to a level with the time; And, if a son of thine Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like For Fatherland and Freedom strike As Justice gives the sign. Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease, The great occasion's forelock seize; And let the north-wind strong, And golden leaves of autumn, be Thy coronal of Victory And thy triumphal song. 10th me., 1856. LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men, in Southern Kansas, in May, 1858, took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French voyageurs. A BLUSH as of roses Where rose never grew! Great drops on the bunch-grass, But not of the dew! A taint in the sweet air For wild bees to shun! A stain that shall never Bleach out in the sun. Back, steed of the prairies Sweet song-bird, fly back! Wheel hither, bald vulture! Gray wolf, call thy pack! The foul human vultures Have feasted and fled; The wolves of the Border Have crept from the dead. From the hearths of their cabins, The fields of their corn, Unwarned and unweaponed, The victims were torn,-- By the whirlwind of murder Swooped up and swept on To the low, reedy fen-lands, The Marsh of the Swan. With a vain plea for mercy No stout knee was crooked; In the mouths of the rifles Right manly they looked. How paled the May sunshine, O Marais du Cygne! On death for the strong life, On red grass for green! In the homes of their rearing, Yet warm with their lives, Ye wait the dead only, Poor children and wives! Put out the red forge-fire, The smith shall not come; Unyoke the brown oxen, The ploughman lies dumb. Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh, O dreary death-train, With pressed lips as bloodless As lips of the slain! Kiss down the young eyelids, Smooth down the gray hairs; Let tears quench the curses That burn through your prayers. Strong man of the prairies, Mourn bitter and wild! Wail, desolate woman! Weep, fatherless child! But the grain of God springs up From ashes beneath, And the crown of his harvest Is life out of death. Not in vain on the dial The shade moves along, To point the great contrasts Of right and of wrong: Free homes and free altars, Free prairie and flood,-- The reeds of the Swan's Marsh, Whose bloom is of blood! On the lintels of Kansas That blood shall not dry; Henceforth the Bad Angel Shall harmless go by; Henceforth to the sunset, Unchecked on her way, Shall Liberty follow The march of the day. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA. ALL night above their rocky bed They saw the stars march slow; The wild Sierra overhead, The desert's death below. The Indian from his lodge of bark, The gray bear from his den, Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark, Glared on the mountain men. Still upward turned, with anxious strain, Their leader's sleepless eye, Where splinters of the mountain chain Stood black against the sky. The night waned slow: at last, a glow, A gleam of sudden fire, Shot up behind the walls of snow, And tipped each icy spire. "Up, men!" he cried, "yon rocky cone, To-day, please God, we'll pass, And look from Winter's frozen throne On Summer's flowers and grass!" They set their faces to the blast, They trod the eternal snow, And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last The promised land below. Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed By many an icy horn; Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed, And green with vines and corn. They left the Winter at their backs To flap his baffled wing, And downward, with the cataracts, Leaped to the lap of Spring. Strong leader of that mountain band, Another task remains, To break from Slavery's desert land A path to Freedom's plains. The winds are wild, the way is drear, Yet, flashing through the night, Lo! icy ridge and rocky spear Blaze out in morning light! Rise up, Fremont! and go before; The hour must have its Man; Put on the hunting-shirt once more, And lead in Freedom's van! 8th mo., 1856. A SONG FOR THE TIME. Written in the summer of 1856, during the political campaign of the Free Soil party under the candidacy of John C. Fremont. Up, laggards of Freedom!--our free flag is cast To the blaze of the sun and the wings of the blast; Will ye turn from a struggle so bravely begun, From a foe that is breaking, a field that's half won? Whoso loves not his kind, and who fears not the Lord, Let him join that foe's service, accursed and abhorred Let him do his base will, as the slave only can,-- Let him put on the bloodhound, and put off the Man! Let him go where the cold blood that creeps in his veins Shall stiffen the slave-whip, and rust on his chains; Where the black slave shall laugh in his bonds, to behold The White Slave beside him, self-fettered and sold! But ye, who still boast of hearts beating and warm, Rise, from lake shore and ocean's, like waves in a storm, Come, throng round our banner in Liberty's name, Like winds from your mountains, like prairies aflame! Our foe, hidden long in his ambush of night, Now, forced from his covert, stands black in the light. Oh, the cruel to Man, and the hateful to God, Smite him down to the earth, that is cursed where he trod! For deeper than thunder of summer's loud shower, On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour! Shall we falter before what we've prayed for so long, When the Wrong is so weak, and the Right is so strong? Come forth all together! come old and come young, Freedom's vote in each hand, and her song on each tongue; Truth naked is stronger than Falsehood in mail; The Wrong cannot prosper, the Right cannot fail. Like leaves of the summer once numbered the foe, But the hoar-frost is falling, the northern winds blow; Like leaves of November erelong shall they fall, For earth wearies of them, and God's over all! WHAT OF THE DAY? Written during the stirring weeks when the great political battle for Freedom under Fremont's leadership was permitting strong hope of success,--a hope overshadowed and solemnized by a sense of the magnitude of the barbaric evil, and a forecast of the unscrupulous and desperate use of all its powers in the last and decisive struggle. A SOUND of tumult troubles all the air, Like the low thunders of a sultry sky Far-rolling ere the downright lightnings glare; The hills blaze red with warnings; foes draw nigh, Treading the dark with challenge and reply. Behold the burden of the prophet's vision; The gathering hosts,--the Valley of Decision, Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling o'er. Day of the Lord, of darkness and not light! It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind's roar Even so, Father! Let Thy will be done; Turn and o'erturn, end what Thou bast begun In judgment or in mercy: as for me, If but the least and frailest, let me be Evermore numbered with the truly free Who find Thy service perfect liberty! I fain would thank Thee that my mortal life Has reached the hour (albeit through care and pain) When Good and Evil, as for final strife, Close dim and vast on Armageddon's plain; And Michael and his angels once again Drive howling back the Spirits of the Night. Oh for the faith to read the signs aright And, from the angle of Thy perfect sight, See Truth's white banner floating on before; And the Good Cause, despite of venal friends, And base expedients, move to noble ends; See Peace with Freedom make to Time amends, And, through its cloud of dust, the threshing-floor, Flailed by the thunder, heaped with chaffless grain 1856. A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS. Written after the election in 1586, which showed the immense gains of the Free Soil party, and insured its success in 1860. BENEATH thy skies, November! Thy skies of cloud and rain, Around our blazing camp-fires We close our ranks again. Then sound again the bugles, Call the muster-roll anew; If months have well-nigh won the field, What may not four years do? For God be praised! New England Takes once more her ancient place; Again the Pilgrim's banner Leads the vanguard of the race. Then sound again the bugles, etc. Along the lordly Hudson, A shout of triumph breaks; The Empire State is speaking, From the ocean to the lakes. Then sound again the bugles, etc. The Northern hills are blazing, The Northern skies are bright; And the fair young West is turning Her forehead to the light! Then sound again the bugles, etc. Push every outpost nearer, Press hard the hostile towers! Another Balaklava, And the Malakoff is ours! Then sound again the bugles, Call the muster-roll anew; If months have well-nigh won the field, What may not four years do? THE PANORAMA. "A! fredome is a nobill thing! Fredome mayse man to haif liking. Fredome all solace to man giffis; He levys at ese that frely levys A nobil hart may haif nane ese Na ellvs nocht that may him plese Gyff Fredome failythe." ARCHDEACON BARBOUR. THROUGH the long hall the shuttered windows shed A dubious light on every upturned head; On locks like those of Absalom the fair, On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair, On blank indifference and on curious stare; On the pale Showman reading from his stage The hieroglyphics of that facial page; Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot, And the shrill call, across the general din, "Roll up your curtain! Let the show begin!" At length a murmur like the winds that break Into green waves the prairie's grassy lake, Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud, And, as the west-wind lifts a summer cloud, The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far A green land stretching to the evening star, Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees And flowers hummed over by the desert bees, Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show Fantastic outcrops of the rock below; The slow result of patient Nature's pains, And plastic fingering of her sun and rains; Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine; Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind A fancy, idle as the prairie wind, Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed; The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West. Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells surpass The Tartar's marvels of his Land of Grass, Vast as the sky against whose sunset shores Wave after wave the billowy greenness pours; And, onward still, like islands in that main Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain chain, Whence east and west a thousand waters run From winter lingering under summer's sun. And, still beyond, long lines of foam and sand Tell where Pacific rolls his waves a-land, From many a wide-lapped port and land-locked bay, Opening with thunderous pomp the world's highway To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far Cathay. "Such," said the Showman, as the curtain fell, "Is the new Canaan of our Israel; The land of promise to the swarming North, Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus forth, To the poor Southron on his worn-out soil, Scathed by the curses of unnatural toil; To Europe's exiles seeking home and rest, And the lank nomads of the wandering West, Who, asking neither, in their love of change And the free bison's amplitude of range, Rear the log-hut, for present shelter meant, Not future comfort, like an Arab's tent." Then spake a shrewd on-looker, "Sir," said he, "I like your picture, but I fain would see A sketch of what your promised land will be When, with electric nerve, and fiery-brained, With Nature's forces to its chariot chained, The future grasping, by the past obeyed, The twentieth century rounds a new decade." Then said the Showman, sadly: "He who grieves Over the scattering of the sibyl's leaves Unwisely mourns. Suffice it, that we know What needs must ripen from the seed we sow; That present time is but the mould wherein We cast the shapes of holiness and sin. A painful watcher of the passing hour, Its lust of gold, its strife for place and power; Its lack of manhood, honor, reverence, truth, Wise-thoughted age, and generous-hearted youth; Nor yet unmindful of each better sign, The low, far lights, which on th' horizon shine, Like those which sometimes tremble on the rim Of clouded skies when day is closing dim, Flashing athwart the purple spears of rain The hope of sunshine on the hills again I need no prophet's word, nor shapes that pass Like clouding shadows o'er a magic glass; For now, as ever, passionless and cold, Doth the dread angel of the future hold Evil and good before us, with no voice Or warning look to guide us in our choice; With spectral hands outreaching through the gloom The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom. Transferred from these, it now remains to give The sun and shade of Fate's alternative." Then, with a burst of music, touching all The keys of thrifty life,--the mill-stream's fall, The engine's pant along its quivering rails, The anvil's ring, the measured beat of flails, The sweep of scythes, the reaper's whistled tune, Answering the summons of the bells of noon, The woodman's hail along the river shores, The steamboat's signal, and the dip of oars Slowly the curtain rose from off a land Fair as God's garden. Broad on either hand The golden wheat-fields glimmered in the sun, And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun. Smooth highways set with hedge-rows living green, With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen, The school-house murmuring with its hive-like swarm, The brook-bank whitening in the grist-mill's storm, The painted farm-house shining through the leaves Of fruited orchards bending at its eaves, Where live again, around the Western hearth, The homely old-time virtues of the North; Where the blithe housewife rises with the day, And well-paid labor counts his task a play. And, grateful tokens of a Bible free, And the free Gospel of Humanity, Of diverse-sects and differing names the shrines, One in their faith, whate'er their outward signs, Like varying strophes of the same sweet hymn From many a prairie's swell and river's brim, A thousand church-spires sanctify the air Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign of prayer. Like sudden nightfall over bloom and green The curtain dropped: and, momently, between The clank of fetter and the crack of thong, Half sob, half laughter, music swept along; A strange refrain, whose idle words and low, Like drunken mourners, kept the time of woe; As if the revellers at a masquerade Heard in the distance funeral marches played. Such music, dashing all his smiles with tears, The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears, Where, through the noonday dusk of wooded shores The negro boatman, singing to his oars, With a wild pathos borrowed of his wrong Redeems the jargon of his senseless song. "Look," said the Showman, sternly, as he rolled His curtain upward. "Fate's reverse behold!" A village straggling in loose disarray Of vulgar newness, premature decay; A tavern, crazy with its whiskey brawls, With "Slaves at Auction!" garnishing its walls; Without, surrounded by a motley crowd, The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous and loud, A squire or colonel in his pride of place, Known at free fights, the caucus, and the race, Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot, And silence doubters with a ten-pace shot, Mingling the negro-driving bully's rant With pious phrase and democratic cant, Yet never scrupling, with a filthy jest, To sell the infant from its mother's breast, Break through all ties of wedlock, home, and kin, Yield shrinking girlhood up to graybeard sin; Sell all the virtues with his human stock, The Christian graces on his auction-block, And coolly count on shrewdest bargains driven In hearts regenerate, and in souls forgiven! Look once again! The moving canvas shows A slave plantation's slovenly repose, Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds, The human chattel eats, and sleeps, and breeds; And, held a brute, in practice, as in law, Becomes in fact the thing he's taken for. There, early summoned to the hemp and corn, The nursing mother leaves her child new-born; There haggard sickness, weak and deathly faint, Crawls to his task, and fears to make complaint; And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in decay, Weep for their lost ones sold and torn away! Of ampler size the master's dwelling stands, In shabby keeping with his half-tilled lands; The gates unhinged, the yard with weeds unclean, The cracked veranda with a tipsy lean. Without, loose-scattered like a wreck adrift, Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift; Within, profusion to discomfort joined, The listless body and the vacant mind; The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, born In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene, Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean, From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise, Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies, Taint infant lips beyond all after cure, With the fell poison of a breast impure; Touch boyhood's passions with the breath of flame, From girlhood's instincts steal the blush of shame. So swells, from low to high, from weak to strong, The tragic chorus of the baleful wrong;
{'title': 'Anti-Slavery Poems 3. by John Greenleaf Whittier', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}