Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 47

From Mississippi's fountain-head A sound as of the bison's tread!

There rustled freedom's Charter Oak In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!

Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun. We have a country yet!

The praise, O G.o.d, be thine alone!

Thou givest not for bread a stone; Thou hast not led us through the night To blind us with returning light; Not through the furnace have we pa.s.sed, To perish at its mouth at last.

O night of peace, thy flight restrain!

November's moon, be slow to wane!

Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, On brows of prayer a blessing pour; And give, with full a.s.surance blest, The weary heart of Freedom rest!

1868.

DISARMAMENT.

"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe Down which a groaning diapason runs From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sons Of desolate women in their far-off homes, Waiting to hear the step that never comes!

O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.

War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!

Fear not the end. There is a story told In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit With grave responses listening unto it Once, on the errands of his mercy bent, Buddha, the holy and benevolent, Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook.

"O son of peace!" the giant cried, "thy fate Is sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate."

The unarmed Buddha looking, with no trace Of fear or anger, in the monster's face, In pity said: "Poor fiend, even thee I love."

Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sank To hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrank Into the form and fashion of a dove; And where the thunder of its rage was heard, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird "Hate hath no harm for love," so ran the song; "And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!"

1871.

THE PROBLEM.

I.

NOT without envy Wealth at times must look On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam; All who, by skill and patience, anyhow Make service n.o.ble, and the earth redeem From savageness. By kingly accolade Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made.

Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain And evil counsels proffer, they maintain Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain, And softer pillow for the head of Age.

II.

And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields Labor its just demand; and well for Ease If in the uses of its own, it sees No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields And spreads the table of its luxuries.

The interests of the rich man and the poor Are one and same, inseparable evermore; And, when scant wage or labor fail to give Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live, Need has its rights, necessity its claim.

Yea, even self-wrought misery and shame Test well the charity suffering long and kind.

The home-pressed question of the age can find No answer in the catch-words of the blind Leaders of blind. Solution there is none Save in the Golden Rule of Christ alone.

1877.

OUR COUNTRY.

Read at Woodstock, Conn., July 4,1883.

WE give thy natal day to hope, O Country of our love and prayer I Thy way is down no fatal slope, But up to freer sun and air.

Tried as by furnace-fires, and yet By G.o.d's grace only stronger made, In future tasks before thee set Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid.

The fathers sleep, but men remain As wise, as true, and brave as they; Why count the loss and not the gain?

The best is that we have to-day.

Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime, Within thy mighty bounds transpires, With speed defying s.p.a.ce and time Comes to us on the accusing wires;

While of thy wealth of n.o.ble deeds, Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold, The love that pleads for human needs, The wrong redressed, but half is told!

We read each felon's chronicle, His acts, his words, his gallows-mood; We know the single sinner well And not the nine and ninety good.

Yet if, on daily scandals fed, We seem at times to doubt thy worth, We know thee still, when all is said, The best and dearest spot on earth.

From the warm Mexic Gulf, or where Belted with flowers Los Angeles Basks in the semi-tropic air, To where Katahdin's cedar trees

Are dwarfed and bent by Northern winds, Thy plenty's horn is yearly filled; Alone, the rounding century finds Thy liberal soil by free hands tilled.

A refuge for the wronged and poor, Thy generous heart has borne the blame That, with them, through thy open door, The old world's evil outcasts came.

But, with thy just and equal rule, And labor's need and breadth of lands, Free press and rostrum, church and school, Thy sure, if slow, transforming hands

Shall mould even them to thy design, Making a blessing of the ban; And Freedom's chemistry combine The alien elements of man.

The power that broke their prison bar And set the dusky millions free, And welded in the flame of war The Union fast to Liberty,

Shall it not deal with other ills, Redress the red man's grievance, break The Circean cup which shames and kills, And Labor full requital make?

Alone to such as fitly bear Thy civic honors bid them fall?

And call thy daughters forth to share The rights and duties pledged to all?

Give every child his right of school, Merge private greed in public good, And spare a treasury overfull The tax upon a poor man's food?

No lack was in thy primal stock, No weakling founders builded here; Thine were the men of Plymouth Rock, The Huguenot and Cavalier;

And they whose firm endurance gained The freedom of the souls of men, Whose hands, unstained with blood, maintained The swordless commonwealth of Penn.

And thine shall be the power of all To do the work which duty bids, And make the people's council hall As lasting as the Pyramids!

Well have thy later years made good Thy brave-said word a century back, The pledge of human brotherhood, The equal claim of white and black.

That word still echoes round the world, And all who hear it turn to thee, And read upon thy flag unfurled The prophecies of destiny.

Thy great world-lesson all shall learn, The nations in thy school shall sit, Earth's farthest mountain-tops shall burn With watch-fires from thy own uplit.