Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 15

THRICE welcome to thy sisters of the East, To the strong tillers of a rugged home, With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's foam; And to the young nymphs of the golden West, Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairie bloom, Trail in the sunset,--O redeemed and blest, To the warm welcome of thy sisters come!

Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white bay Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from her plains, And the great lakes, where echo, free alway, Moaned never sh.o.r.eward with the clank of chains, Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing spray, And all their waves keep grateful holiday.

And, smiling on thee through her mountain rains, Vermont shall bless thee; and the granite peaks, And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall wear Their snow-crowns brighter in the cold, keen air; And Ma.s.sachusetts, with her rugged cheeks O'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to thee, When, at thy bidding, the electric wire Shall tremble northward with its words of fire; Glory and praise to G.o.d! another State is free!

1847.

YORKTOWN.

Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regiment, in his description of the siege of Yorktown, says: "The labor on the Virginia plantations is performed altogether by a species of the human race cruelly wrested from their native country, and doomed to perpetual bondage, while their masters are manfully contending for freedom and the natural rights of man. Such is the inconsistency of human nature." Eighteen hundred slaves were found at Yorktown, after its surrender, and restored to their masters. Well was it said by Dr. Barnes, in his late work on Slavery: "No slave was any nearer his freedom after the surrender of Yorktown than when Patrick Henry first taught the notes of liberty to echo among the hills and vales of Virginia."

FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill Who curbs his steed at head of one?

Hark! the low murmur: Washington!

Who bends his keen, approving glance, Where down the gorgeous line of France Shine knightly star and plume of snow?

Thou too art victor, Rochambeau!

The earth which bears this calm array Shook with the war-charge yesterday,

Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel; October's clear and noonday sun Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun, And down night's double blackness fell, Like a dropped star, the blazing sh.e.l.l.

Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines Stand moveless as the neighboring pines; While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, The conquered hosts of England go O'Hara's brow belies his dress, Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless: Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes!

Nor thou alone; with one glad voice Let all thy sister States rejoice; Let Freedom, in whatever clime She waits with sleepless eye her time, Shouting from cave and mountain wood Make glad her desert solitude, While they who hunt her quail with fear; The New World's chain lies broken here!

But who are they, who, cowering, wait Within the shattered fortress gate?

Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, Cla.s.sed with the battle's common spoil, With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine, With Indian weed and planters' wine, With stolen beeves, and foraged corn,-- Are they not men, Virginian born?

Oh, veil your faces, young and brave!

Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave Sons of the Northland, ye who set Stout hearts against the bayonet, And pressed with steady footfall near The moated battery's blazing tier, Turn your scarred faces from the sight, Let shame do homage to the right!

Lo! fourscore years have pa.s.sed; and where The Gallic bugles stirred the air, And, through breached batteries, side by side, To victory stormed the hosts allied, And brave foes grounded, pale with pain, The arms they might not lift again, As abject as in that old day The slave still toils his life away.

Oh, fields still green and fresh in story, Old days of pride, old names of glory, Old marvels of the tongue and pen, Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men, Ye spared the wrong; and over all Behold the avenging shadow fall!

Your world-wide honor stained with shame,-- Your freedom's self a hollow name!

Where's now the flag of that old war?

Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star?

Bear witness, Palo Alto's day, Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey, Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak; Symbol of terror and despair, Of chains and slaves, go seek it there!

Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks!

Brave sport to see the fledgling born Of Freedom by its parent torn!

Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell, Safe drear Siberia's frozen h.e.l.l With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, What of the New World fears the Old?

1847.

RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

O MOTHER EARTH! upon thy lap Thy weary ones receiving, And o'er them, silent as a dream, Thy gra.s.sy mantle weaving, Fold softly in thy long embrace That heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneath Thy shadows old and oaken.

Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning.

Breathe over him forgetfulness Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness.

There, where with living ear and eye He heard Potomac's flowing, And, through his tall ancestral trees, Saw autumn's sunset glowing, He sleeps, still looking to the west, Beneath the dark wood shadow, As if he still would see the sun Sink down on wave and meadow.

Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himself All moods of mind contrasting,-- The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting; The pathos which from rival eyes Unwilling tears could summon, The stinging taunt, the fiery burst Of hatred scarcely human!

Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, From lips of life-long sadness; Clear picturings of majestic thought Upon a ground of madness; And over all Romance and Song A cla.s.sic beauty throwing, And laurelled Clio at his side Her storied pages showing.

All parties feared him: each in turn Beheld its schemes disjointed, As right or left his fatal glance And spectral finger pointed.

Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down With trenchant wit unsparing, And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand The robe Pretence was wearing.

Too honest or too proud to feign A love he never cherished, Beyond Virginia's border line His patriotism perished.

While others hailed in distant skies Our eagle's dusky pinion, He only saw the mountain bird Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!

Still through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning, His loving faith in Mother-land Knew never shade of turning; By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide, Whatever sky was o'er him, He heard her rivers' rushing sound, Her blue peaks rose before him.

He held his slaves, yet made withal No false and vain pretences, Nor paid a lying priest to seek For Scriptural defences.

His harshest words of proud rebuke, His bitterest taunt and scorning, Fell fire-like on the Northern brow That bent to him in fawning.

He held his slaves; yet kept the while His reverence for the Human; In the dark va.s.sals of his will He saw but Man and Woman!

No hunter of G.o.d's outraged poor His Roanoke valley entered; No trader in the souls of men Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man Lay down for his last sleeping, And at his side, a slave no more, His brother-man stood weeping, His latest thought, his latest breath, To Freedom's duty giving, With failing tengue and trembling hand The dying blest the living.

Oh, never bore his ancient State A truer son or braver None trampling with a calmer scorn On foreign hate or favor.

He knew her faults, yet never stooped His proud and manly feeling To poor excuses of the wrong Or meanness of concealing.

But none beheld with clearer eye The plague-spot o'er her spreading, None heard more sure the steps of Doom Along her future treading.

For her as for himself he spake, When, his gaunt frame upbracing, He traced with dying hand "Remorse!"

And perished in the tracing.

As from the grave where Henry sleeps, From Vernon's weeping willow, And from the gra.s.sy pall which hides The Sage of Monticello, So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone Of Randolph's lowly dwelling, Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves A warning voice is swelling!

And hark! from thy deserted fields Are sadder warnings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons Their household G.o.ds have broken.

The curse is on thee,--wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheaves giving Oh, more than all thy dead renown Were now one hero living

1847.

THE LOST STATESMAN.

Written on hearing of the death of Silas Wright of New York.