Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 22

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, Uncirc.u.mcised 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 G.o.d!" and stamped and clapped their hands; And the rough river boatmen wiped their eyes; "Go it, old hoss!" they cried, and cursed the n.i.g.g.e.rs-- 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 cla.s.s-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, a.s.sures 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 inst.i.tutions--staking out Their farm lots on the wooded Wakarusa, Or squatting by the mellow-bottomed Kansas; The pioneers of mightier mult.i.tudes, 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 gra.s.ses 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.ls, 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: G.o.d 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 G.o.d's life is in the cause That we suffer for to-day.

Well to suffer is divine; Pa.s.s the watchword down the line, Pa.s.s the countersign: "Endure."

Not to him who rashly dares, But to him who n.o.bly 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.sacre 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-gra.s.s, 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.