Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 48

Great without seeking to be great By fraud or conquest, rich in gold, But richer in the large estate Of virtue which thy children hold,

With peace that comes of purity And strength to simple justice due, So runs our loyal dream of thee; G.o.d of our fathers! make it true.

O Land of lands! to thee we give Our prayers, our hopes, our service free; For thee thy sons shall n.o.bly live, And at thy need shall die for thee!

ON THE BIG HORN.

In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custer and his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one of the fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow's poem on the ma.s.sacre, these lines will be remembered:--

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face, "Revenge upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"

And the mountains dark and high From their crags reechoed the cry Of his anger and despair.

He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, September 28, 1886: "Rain-in-the-Face is very anxious to go to Hampton. I fear he is too old, but he desires very much to go." The Southern Workman, the organ of General Armstrong's Industrial School at Hampton, Va., says in a late number:--

"Rain-in-the-Face has applied before to come to Hampton, but his age would exclude him from the school as an ordinary student. He has shown himself very much in earnest about it, and is anxious, all say, to learn the better ways of life. It is as unusual as it is striking to see a man of his age, and one who has had such an experience, willing to give up the old way, and put himself in the position of a boy and a student."

THE years are but half a score, And the war-whoop sounds no more With the blast of bugles, where Straight into a slaughter pen, With his doomed three hundred men, Rode the chief with the yellow hair.

O Hampton, down by the sea!

What voice is beseeching thee For the scholar's lowliest place?

Can this be the voice of him Who fought on the Big Horn's rim?

Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?

His war-paint is washed away, His hands have forgotten to slay; He seeks for himself and his race The arts of peace and the lore That give to the skilled hand more Than the spoils of war and chase.

O chief of the Christ-like school!

Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool When the victor scarred with fight Like a child for thy guidance craves, And the faces of hunters and braves Are turning to thee for light?

The hatchet lies overgrown With gra.s.s by the Yellowstone, Wind River and Paw of Bear; And, in sign that foes are friends, Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends Its smoke in the quiet air.

The hands that have done the wrong To right the wronged are strong, And the voice of a nation saith "Enough of the war of swords, Enough of the lying words And shame of a broken faith!"

The hills that have watched afar The valleys ablaze with war Shall look on the ta.s.selled corn; And the dust of the grinded grain, Instead of the blood of the slain, Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!

The Ute and the wandering Crow Shall know as the white men know, And fare as the white men fare; The pale and the red shall be brothers, One's rights shall be as another's, Home, School, and House of Prayer!

O mountains that climb to snow, O river winding below, Through meadows by war once trod, O wild, waste lands that await The harvest exceeding great, Break forth into praise of G.o.d!

1887.

NOTES

Note 1, page 18. The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, during his confinement in France.

"Toussaint!--thou most unhappy man of men Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough Within thy hearing, or thou liest now Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den; O miserable chieftain!--where and when Wilt thou find patience?--Yet, die not, do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow; Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,-- There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies.

Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind."

Note 2, page 67. The Northern author of the Congressional rule against receiving pet.i.tions of the people on the subject of Slavery.

Note 3, page 88. There was at the time when this poem was written an a.s.sociation in Liberty County, Georgia, for the religious instruction of negroes. One of their annual reports contains an address by the Rev.

Josiah Spry Law, in which the following pa.s.sage occurs: "There is a growing interest in this community in the religious instruction of negroes. There is a conviction that religious instruction promotes the quiet and order of the people, and the pecuniary interest of the owners."

Note 4, page 117. The book-establishment of the Free-Will Baptists in Dover was refused the act of incorporation by the New Hampshire Legislature, for the reason that the newspaper organ of that sect and its leading preachers favored abolition.

Note 5, page 118. The senatorial editor of the Belknap Gazette all along manifested a peculiar horror of "n.i.g.g.e.rs" and "n.i.g.g.e.r parties."

Note 6, page 118. The justice before whom Elder Storrs was brought for preaching abolition on a writ drawn by Hon. M. N., Jr., of Pittsfield.

The sheriff served the writ while the elder was praying.

Note 7, page 118. The academy at Canaan, N. H., received one or two colored scholars, and was in consequence dragged off into a swamp by Democratic teams.

Note 8, page 119. "Papers and memorials touching the subject of slavery shall be laid on the table without reading, debate, or reference." So read the gag-law, as it was called, introduced in the House by Mr.

Atherton.

Note 9, page 120. The Female Anti-Slavery Society, at its first meeting in Concord, was a.s.sailed with stones and brickbats.

Note 10, page 168. The election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate "followed hard upon" the rendition of the fugitive Sims by the United States officials and the armed police of Boston.

Note 11, page 290. For the idea of this line, I am indebted to Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to the Rhodora,--

"If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."