The Mistress of the Manse Part 11

His pulpit smoked beneath his blows; His voice was heard in hall and street; A thousand friends became his foes, And pews were empty or replete, With pa.s.sion's ebbs and overflows.

They trailed his good name in the mire; They spat their venom in his eyes; They taunted him with mad desire For power, and gathered his replies In braver words and fiercer fire,

He was a wolf, disguised in wool; He was a viper in the breast; He was a villain, or the tool Of greater villains; at the best, A blind enthusiast and fool!

As swelled the tempest, rose the man; He turned to sport their brutal spleen; And none could choose be slow to span The difference that lay between A Prospero and a Caliban!

XI.

She would not move him otherwise, Although her heart was sad and sore.

That which was venal in his eyes To her a lovely aspect wore, And helped to weave the thousand ties

Which bound her to her youth, and all The loves that she had left behind When, from her father's stately hall, She came, her Northern home to find, With him who held her heart in thrall.

In the dark pictures which he drew Of inst.i.tuted shame and wrong, She saw no figures that she knew, But a confused and hateful throng Of forms that in his fancy grew.

Her father's rule, benign and mild, Was all of slavery she had known; To her, an Afric was a child-- A charge in other ages thrown On Christian honor, from the wild

Of savagery in which the Fates Had given him birth and dwelling-place-- And so, descending through estates Of gentle va.s.salage, his race Had come to those of later dates.

Black hands her baby form had dressed; Black hands her blacker hair had curled; And she had found a dusky breast The sweetest breast in all the world When she was thirsty or at rest.

Her playmates, in her native bowers, Were Darkest children of the sun, Who built the palaces and towers In which her reign, in love begun, Gave foretaste of love's later hours.

Her memory was full of song That she had learned in house and field, From those whose days seemed never long, And those who could not hold concealed The consciousness of shame and wrong.

A loving ear heard their complaints; A faithful tongue advised and warned; And grave corrections and restraints Were rendered by a heart adorned By all the graces of the saints.

There was no touch of memory's chords-- No picture on her blooming wall,-- Of life upon the sunny swards They reproduced,--but brought recall Of happy slaves and gentle lords.

And Philip charged a deadly sin Upon that beautiful domain, Condemning all who dwelt therein, And branding with the awful stain Her friends, and all her dearest kin.

XII.

Yet still she knew his conscience clear,-- That he believed his voice was G.o.d's; And listened with a voiceless fear To the portentous periods In which he preached the chosen year

Of expiation and release, And prophesied that Slavery's power, Grown great apace with crime's increase, Before the front of Right should cower, And bid G.o.d's people go in peace!

The fierce invectives of his tongue Frayed every day her wounds afresh, And with new pain her bosom wrung, For they envenomed kindred flesh, To which in sympathy she clung.

Yet not a finger did she lift To hold him from his fateful task, Though Satan oft essayed to sift Her soul as wheat, and bade her ask Somewhat from conscience as a gift.

And when a serpent in his slime Crept to her ear with phrase polite, Prating of duty to her time And to her people, swift and white She turned and cursed him for his crime!

She would have naught of all the brood Of temporizing, driveling shows Of men who Philip's words withstood: Against them all her love uprose, And all her pride of womanhood.

XIII.

She loved her kindred none the less, She loved her husband still the more, For well she knew that with distress He saw the heavy cross she bore With steadfast faith and tenderness.

She kept her love intact, because She would not be a partisan; Not hers the voice that made the laws, Nor hers prerogative to ban, Or bolster them with her applause.

No strife of jarring policies, No conflict of embittered states, No chart, defining by degrees Of lat.i.tude her country's hates, Could change her friends to enemies.

The motives ranged on either hand, Behind the war of word and will, Were such as she could understand And, with respect to all, fulfil Love's broad and beautiful command.

So, with all questions hushed to sleep, And all opinions put aside, She gave her loved ones to the keep Of G.o.d, whatever should betide, To bear her joy or bid her weep!

XIV.

Though Philip knew he wounded her, His faith to G.o.d and faith to man Bade him go forward, and incur Such cost as, since the world began, Has burdened Freedom's harbinger.

No heart or hand was his to flinch From ease or reputation lost; Nor waste of gold, nor hunger-pinch, Nor e'en his home's black holocaust, Could stay his arm, though inch by inch,

The maddened hosts of scorn and scath Should crowd him backward to defeat.

He would but strive with sterner wrath, And bless the hand that, soft and sweet, Withheld its hinderance from his path!

XV.

Still darker loomed the Southern cloud, While o'er its black and billowed face In furrowed fire the lightning ploughed, And ramping from its hiding-place Roared the wild thunder, fierce and loud!

And still men chattered of their trade, And strove to banish their alarms; And some were puzzled, some afraid, And some held up their feeble arms In indignation while they prayed!

And others weakly talked of schism As boon of G.o.d in place of war, And bared their foreheads for its chrism!

While direr than the mace of Thor, In mid-air hung the cataclysm

Which waited but some chance, or act, To shiver the electric spell, And pour in one fierce cataract A rain of blood and fire of h.e.l.l On Freedom's temple spoiled and sacked.

The politician plied his craft; The demagogue still schemed and lied; The patriot wept, the traitor laughed; The coward to his covert hied, And statesmen went distract or daft.

Contention raged in Senate halls; Confusion reigned in field and town; High conclaves flattened into brawls, And till and hammer, smock and gown, Nor duty knew nor heard its calls!

XVI.

At last, incontinent of fire, The cloud of menace belched its brand; And every state and every shire, And town and hamlet in the land, Shook with the smiting of its ire!

Men looked each other in the eyes, And beat their burning b.r.e.a.s.t.s and cursed!