Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 43

Let this great hope be with them, as they lie Shut from the light, the greenness, and the sky; From the cool waters and the pleasant breeze, The smell of flowers, and shade of summer trees; Bound with the felon lepers, whom disease And sins abhorred make loathsome; let them share Pellico's faith, Foresti's strength to bear Years of unutterable torment, stern and still, As the chained t.i.tan victor through his will!

Comfort them with thy future; let them see The day-dawn of Italian liberty; For that, with all good things, is hid with Thee, And, perfect in thy thought, awaits its time to be.

I, who have spoken for freedom at the cost Of some weak friendships, or some paltry prize Of name or place, and more than I have lost Have gained in wider reach of sympathies, And free communion with the good and wise; May G.o.d forbid that I should ever boast Such easy self-denial, or repine That the strong pulse of health no more is mine; That, overworn at noonday, I must yield To other hands the gleaning of the field; A tired on-looker through the day's decline.

For blest beyond deserving still, and knowing That kindly Providence its care is showing In the withdrawal as in the bestowing, Scarcely I dare for more or less to pray.

Beautiful yet for me this autumn day Melts on its sunset hills; and, far away, For me the Ocean lifts its solemn psalm, To me the pine-woods whisper; and for me Yon river, winding through its vales of calm, By greenest banks, with asters purple-starred, And gentian bloom and golden-rod made gay, Flows down in silent gladness to the sea, Like a pure spirit to its great reward!

Nor lack I friends, long-tried and near and dear, Whose love is round me like this atmosphere, Warm, soft, and golden. For such gifts to me What shall I render, O my G.o.d, to thee?

Let me not dwell upon my lighter share Of pain and ill that human life must bear; Save me from selfish pining; let my heart, Drawn from itself in sympathy, forget The bitter longings of a vain regret, The anguish of its own peculiar smart.

Remembering others, as I have to-day, In their great sorrows, let me live alway Not for myself alone, but have a part, Such as a frail and erring spirit may, In love which is of Thee, and which indeed Thou art!

1851.

THE PEACE OF EUROPE.

"GREAT peace in Europe! Order reigns From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!"

So say her kings and priests; so say The lying prophets of our day.

Go lay to earth a listening ear; The tramp of measured marches hear; The rolling of the cannon's wheel, The shotted musket's murderous peal, The night alarm, the sentry's call, The quick-eared spy in hut and hall!

From Polar sea and tropic fen The dying-groans of exiled men!

The bolted cell, the galley's chains, The scaffold smoking with its stains!

Order, the hush of brooding slaves Peace, in the dungeon-vaults and graves!

O Fisher! of the world-wide net, With meshes in all waters set, Whose fabled keys of heaven and h.e.l.l Bolt hard the patriot's prison-cell, And open wide the banquet-hall, Where kings and priests hold carnival!

Weak va.s.sal tricked in royal guise, Boy Kaiser with thy lip of lies; Base gambler for Napoleon's crown, Barnacle on his dead renown!

Thou, Bourbon Neapolitan, Crowned scandal, loathed of G.o.d and man And thou, fell Spider of the North!

Stretching thy giant feelers forth, Within whose web the freedom dies Of nations eaten up like flies!

Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and Czar I If this be Peace, pray what is War?

White Angel of the Lord! unmeet That soil accursed for thy pure feet.

Never in Slavery's desert flows The fountain of thy charmed repose; No tyrant's hand thy chaplet weaves Of lilies and of olive-leaves; Not with the wicked shalt thou dwell, Thus saith the Eternal Oracle; Thy home is with the pure and free!

Stern herald of thy better day, Before thee, to prepare thy way, The Baptist Shade of Liberty, Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must press With bleeding feet the wilderness!

Oh that its voice might pierces the ear Of princes, trembling while they hear A cry as of the Hebrew seer Repent! G.o.d's kingdom draweth near!

1852.

ASTRAEA.

"Jove means to settle Astraea in her seat again, And let down from his golden chain An age of better metal."

BEN JONSON, 1615.

O POET rare and old!

Thy words are prophecies; Forward the age of gold, The new Saturnian lies.

The universal prayer And hope are not in vain; Rise, brothers! and prepare The way for Saturn's reign.

Perish shall all which takes From labor's board and can; Perish shall all which makes A spaniel of the man!

Free from its bonds the mind, The body from the rod; Broken all chains that bind The image of our G.o.d.

Just men no longer pine Behind their prison-bars; Through the rent dungeon shine The free sun and the stars.

Earth own, at last, untrod By sect, or caste, or clan, The fatherhood of G.o.d, The brotherhood of man!

Fraud fail, craft perish, forth The money-changers driven, And G.o.d's will done on earth, As now in heaven.

1852.

THE DISENTHRALLED.

HE had bowed down to drunkenness, An abject worshipper The pride of manhood's pulse had grown Too faint and cold to stir; And he had given his spirit up To the unblessed thrall, And bowing to the poison cup, He gloried in his fall!

There came a change--the cloud rolled off, And light fell on his brain-- And like the pa.s.sing of a dream That cometh not again, The shadow of the spirit fled.

He saw the gulf before, He shuddered at the waste behind, And was a man once more.

He shook the serpent folds away, That gathered round his heart, As shakes the swaying forest-oak Its poison vine apart; He stood erect; returning pride Grew terrible within, And conscience sat in judgment, on His most familiar sin.

The light of Intellect again Along his pathway shone; And Reason like a monarch sat Upon his olden throne.

The honored and the wise once more Within his presence came; And lingered oft on lovely lips His once forbidden name.

There may be glory in the might, That treadeth nations down; Wreaths for the crimson conqueror, Pride for the kingly crown; But n.o.bler is that triumph hour, The disenthralled shall find, When evil pa.s.sion boweth down, Unto the G.o.dlike mind.

THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY.

THE proudest now is but my peer, The highest not more high; To-day, of all the weary year, A king of men am I.

To-day, alike are great and small, The nameless and the known; My palace is the people's hall, The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list Beside the served shall stand; Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, The gloved and dainty hand!

The rich is level with the poor, The weak is strong to-day; And sleekest broadcloth counts no more Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence My stubborn right abide; I set a plain man's common sense Against the pedant's pride.

To-day shall simple manhood try The strength of gold and land; The wide world has not wealth to buy The power in my right hand!

While there's a grief to seek redress, Or balance to adjust, Where weighs our living manhood less Than Mammon's vilest dust,-- While there's a right to need my vote, A wrong to sweep away, Up! clouted knee and ragged coat A man's a man to-day.

1848.