Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 14

The hills have bonfires; in our streets Flags flout us in our faces; The newsboys, peddling off their sheets, Are hoa.r.s.e with our disgraces.

In vain we turn, for gibing wit And shoutings follow after, As if old Kearsarge had split His granite sides with laughter.

What boots it that we pelted out The anti-slavery women, (9) And bravely strewed their hall about With tattered lace and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g?

Was it for such a sad reverse Our mobs became peacemakers, And kept their tar and wooden horse For Englishmen and Quakers?

For this did shifty Atherton Make gag rules for the Great House?

Wiped we for this our feet upon Pet.i.tions in our State House?

Plied we for this our axe of doom, No stubborn traitor sparing, Who scoffed at our opinion loom, And took to homespun wearing?

Ah, Moses! hard it is to scan These crooked providences, Deducing from the wisest plan The saddest consequences!

Strange that, in trampling as was meet The n.i.g.g.e.r-men's pet.i.tion, We sprang a mine beneath our feet Which opened up perdition.

How goodly, Moses, was the game In which we've long been actors, Supplying freedom with the name And slavery with the practice Our smooth words fed the people's mouth, Their ears our party rattle; We kept them headed to the South, As drovers do their cattle.

But now our game of politics The world at large is learning; And men grown gray in all our tricks State's evidence are turning.

Votes and preambles subtly spun They cram with meanings louder, And load the Democratic gun With abolition powder.

The ides of June! Woe worth the day When, turning all things over, The traitor Hale shall make his hay From Democratic clover!

Who then shall take him in the law, Who punish crime so flagrant?

Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw, A writ against that "vagrant"?

Alas! no hope is left us here, And one can only pine for The envied place of overseer Of slaves in Carolina!

Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink, And see what pay he's giving!

We've practised long enough, we think, To know the art of driving.

And for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their while To try the rice plantations.

Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper; The slaves, we know, are "better off Than laborers in New Hampshire!"

LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND.

A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of fire, O Freedom's G.o.d! be Thou to him!

Speak through him words of power and fear, As through Thy prophet bards of old, And let a scornful people hear Once more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled.

For lying lips Thy blessing seek, And hands of blood are raised to Thee, And On Thy children, crushed and weak, The oppressor plants his kneeling knee.

Let then, O G.o.d! Thy servant dare Thy truth in all its power to tell, Unmask the priestly thieves, and tear The Bible from the grasp of h.e.l.l!

From hollow rite and narrow span Of law and sect by Thee released, Oh, teach him that the Christian man Is holier than the Jewish priest.

Chase back the shadows, gray and old, Of the dead ages, from his way, And let his hopeful eyes behold The dawn of Thy millennial day;

That day when fettered limb and mind Shall know the truth which maketh free, And he alone who loves his kind Shall, childlike, claim the love of Thee!

DANIEL NEALL.

Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that venerated philanthropist, Warner Mifflin, whom the Girondist statesman, Jean Pierre Brissot, p.r.o.nounced "an angel of mercy, the best man he ever knew," was one of the n.o.ble band of Pennsylvania abolitionists, whose bravery was equalled only by their gentleness and tenderness. He presided at the great anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall, May 17, 1838, when the Hall was surrounded by a furious mob. I was standing near him while the gla.s.s of the windows broken by missiles showered over him, and a deputation from the rioters forced its way to the platform, and demanded that the meeting should be closed at once. Dr. Neall drew up his tall form to its utmost height. "I am here," he said, "the president of this meeting, and I will be torn in pieces before I leave my place at your dictation. Go back to those who sent you. I shall do my duty." Some years after, while visiting his relatives in his native State of Delaware, he was dragged from the house of his friends by a mob of slave-holders and brutally maltreated. He bore it like a martyr of the old times; and when released, told his persecutors that he forgave them, for it was not they but Slavery which had done the wrong. If they should ever be in Philadelphia and needed hospitality or aid, let them call on him.

I.

FRIEND of the Slave, and yet the friend of all; Lover of peace, yet ever foremost when The need of battling Freedom called for men To plant the banner on the outer wall; Gentle and kindly, ever at distress Melted to more than woman's tenderness, Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's post Fronting the violence of a maddened host, Like some gray rock from which the waves are tossed!

Knowing his deeds of love, men questioned not The faith of one whose walk and word were right; Who tranquilly in Life's great task-field wrought, And, side by side with evil, scarcely caught A stain upon his pilgrim garb of white Prompt to redress another's wrong, his own Leaving to Time and Truth and Penitence alone.

II.

Such was our friend. Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still; And, while "Lord, Lord!" the pious tyrants cried, Who, in the poor, their Master crucified, His daily prayer, far better understood In acts than words, was simply doing good.

So calm, so constant was his rect.i.tude, That by his loss alone we know its worth, And feel how true a man has walked with us on earth.

6th, 6th month, 1846.

SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT.

"Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March, 1846.--This evening the female slaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to ask my negro servant, Said, what they were singing about. As many of them were natives of his own country, he had no difficulty in translating the Mandara or Bornou language. I had often asked the Moors to translate their songs for me, but got no satisfactory account from them. Said at first said, 'Oh, they sing of Rubee' (G.o.d). 'What do you mean?' I replied, impatiently. 'Oh, don't you know?' he continued, 'they asked G.o.d to give them their Atka?' (certificate of freedom). I inquired, 'Is that all?' Said: 'No; they say, "Where are we going? The world is large.

O G.o.d! Where are we going? O G.o.d!"' I inquired, 'What else?' Said: 'They remember their country, Bornou, and say, "Bornou was a pleasant country, full of all good things; but this is a bad country, and we are miserable!"' 'Do they say anything else?' Said: 'No; they repeat these words over and over again, and add, "O G.o.d! give us our Atka, and let us return again to our dear home."'

"I am not surprised I got little satisfaction when I asked the Moors about the songs of their slaves. Who will say that the above words are not a very appropriate song? What could have been more congenially adapted to their then woful condition? It is not to be wondered at that these poor bondwomen cheer up their hearts, in their long, lonely, and painful wanderings over the desert, with words and sentiments like these; but I have often observed that their fatigue and sufferings were too great for them to strike up this melancholy dirge, and many days their plaintive strains never broke over the silence of the desert."-- Richardson's Journal in Africa.

WHERE are we going? where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?

Lord of peoples, lord of lands, Look across these shining sands, Through the furnace of the noon, Through the white light of the moon.

Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, Strange and large the world is growing!

Speak and tell us where we are going, Where are we going, Rubee?

Bornou land was rich and good, Wells of water, fields of food, Dourra fields, and bloom of bean, And the palm-tree cool and green Bornou land we see no longer, Here we thirst and here we hunger, Here the Moor-man smites in anger Where are we going, Rubee?

When we went from Bornou land, We were like the leaves and sand, We were many, we are few; Life has one, and death has two Whitened bones our path are showing, Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing Hear us, tell us, where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?

Moons of marches from our eyes Bornou land behind us lies; Stranger round us day by day Bends the desert circle gray; Wild the waves of sand are flowing, Hot the winds above them blowing,-- Lord of all things! where are we going?

Where are we going, Rubee?

We are weak, but Thou art strong; Short our lives, but Thine is long; We are blind, but Thou hast eyes; We are fools, but Thou art wise!

Thou, our morrow's pathway knowing Through the strange world round us growing, Hear us, tell us where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee?

1847.

TO DELAWARE.

Written during the discussion in the Legislature of that State, in the winter of 1846-47, of a bill for the abolition of slavery.