Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 11

"Onward with your fell design; Dig the gulf and draw the line Fire beneath your feet the mine!

"Deeply, when the wide abyss Yawns between your land and this, Shall ye feel your helplessness.

"By the hearth, and in the bed, Shaken by a look or tread, Ye shall own a guilty dread.

"And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soil Like a fire shall burn and spoil.

"Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys flow;--

"And when vengeance clouds your skies, Hither shall ye turn your eyes, As the lost on Paradise!

"We but ask our rocky strand, Freedom's true and brother band, Freedom's strong and honest hand;

"Valleys by the slave untrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' G.o.d!"

1844.

TO FANEUIL HALL.

Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Ma.s.sachusetts Freeman" for a meeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts, without distinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and the aggressions of South Carolina, and in favor of decisive action against slavery.

MEN! if manhood still ye claim, If the Northern pulse can thrill, Roused by wrong or stung by shame, Freely, strongly still; Let the sounds of traffic die Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall, Fling the axe and hammer by; Throng to Faneuil Hall!

Wrongs which freemen never brooked, Dangers grim and fierce as they, Which, like couching lions, looked On your fathers' way; These your instant zeal demand, Shaking with their earthquake-call Every rood of Pilgrim land, Ho, to Faneuil Hall!

From your capes and sandy bars, From your mountain-ridges cold, Through whose pines the westering stars Stoop their crowns of gold; Come, and with your footsteps wake Echoes from that holy wall; Once again, for Freedom's sake, Rock your fathers' hall!

Up, and tread beneath your feet Every cord by party spun: Let your hearts together beat As the heart of one.

Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, Let them rise or let them fall: Freedom asks your common aid,-- Up, to Faneuil Hall!

Up, and let each voice that speaks Ring from thence to Southern plains, Sharply as the blow which breaks Prison-bolts and chains!

Speak as well becomes the free Dreaded more than steel or ball, Shall your calmest utterance be, Heard from Faneuil Hall!

Have they wronged us? Let us then Render back nor threats nor prayers; Have they chained our free-born men?

Let us unchain theirs!

Up, your banner leads the van, Blazoned, "Liberty for all!"

Finish what your sires began!

Up, to Faneuil Hall!

TO Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

WHAT though around thee blazes No fiery rallying sign?

From all thy own high places, Give heaven the light of thine!

What though unthrilled, unmoving, The statesman stand apart, And comes no warm approving From Mammon's crowded mart?

Still, let the land be shaken By a summons of thine own!

By all save truth forsaken, Stand fast with that alone!

Shrink not from strife unequal!

With the best is always hope; And ever in the sequel G.o.d holds the right side up!

But when, with thine uniting, Come voices long and loud, And far-off hills are writing Thy fire-words on the cloud; When from Pen.o.bscot's fountains A deep response is heard, And across the Western mountains Rolls back thy rallying word;

Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view?

Oh, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true!

Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom Speed them onward far and fast Over hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast!

Lo! the Empire State is shaking The shackles from her hand; With the rugged North is waking The level sunset land!

On they come, the free battalions East and West and North they come, And the heart-beat of the millions Is the beat of Freedom's drum.

"To the tyrant's plot no favor No heed to place-fed knaves!

Bar and bolt the door forever Against the land of slaves!"

Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread!

The land is roused,--its spirit Was sleeping, but not dead!

1844.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

G.o.d bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks.

The long-bound va.s.sal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken!

Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changes The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe; To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, New Hampshire thunders an indignant No!

Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart, Look upward to those Northern mountains cold, Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled, And gather strength to bear a manlier part All is not lost. The angel of G.o.d's blessing Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight; Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing, Unlooked-for allies, striking for the right Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true: What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do?

1845.

THE PINE-TREE.

Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846.

LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field.

Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!"

Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array!

What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.

Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries; Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise?