Chapter 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger

ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS

SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM

BY

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

CONTENTS:

TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND TO FANEUIL HALL TO MASSACHUSETTS NEW HAMPSHIRE THE PINE-TREE TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN AT WASHINGTON THE BRANDED HAND THE FREED ISLANDS A LETTER LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND DANIEL NEALL SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT To DELAWARE YORKTOWN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE THE LOST STATESMAN THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS PAEAN THE CRISIS LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER

TEXAS

VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND.

The five poems immediately following indicate the intense feeling of the friends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States.

Up the hillside, down the glen, Rouse the sleeping citizen; Summon out the might of men!

Like a lion growling low, Like a night-storm rising slow, Like the tread of unseen foe;

It is coming, it is nigh! Stand your homes and altars by; On your own free thresholds die.

Clang the bells in all your spires; On the gray hills of your sires Fling to heaven your signal-fires.

From Wachuset, lone and bleak, Unto Berkshire's tallest peak, Let the flame-tongued heralds speak.

Oh, for God and duty stand, Heart to heart and hand to hand, Round the old graves of the land.

Whoso shrinks or falters now, Whoso to the yoke would bow, Brand the craven on his brow!

Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race, None for traitors false and base.

Perish party, perish clan; Strike together while ye can, Like the arm of one strong man.

Like that angel's voice sublime, Heard above a world of crime, Crying of the end of time;

With one heart and with one mouth, Let the North unto the South Speak the word befitting both.

"What though Issachar be strong Ye may load his back with wrong Overmuch and over long:

"Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done.

"Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strain Link by link shall snap in twain.

"Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Bind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope!

"Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.

"Take your land of sun and bloom; Only leave to Freedom room For her plough, and forge, and loom;

"Take your slavery-blackened vales; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails.

"Boldly, or with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; Break the Union's mighty heart;

"Work the ruin, if ye will; Pluck upon your heads an ill Which shall grow and deepen still.

"With your bondman's right arm bare, With his heart of black despair, Stand alone, if stand ye dare!

"Onward with your fell design; Dig the gulf and draw the line Fire beneath your feet the mine!

"Deeply, when the wide abyss Yawns between your land and this, Shall ye feel your helplessness.

"By the hearth, and in the bed, Shaken by a look or tread, Ye shall own a guilty dread.

"And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soil Like a fire shall burn and spoil.

"Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys flow;--

"And when vengeance clouds your skies, Hither shall ye turn your eyes, As the lost on Paradise!

"We but ask our rocky strand, Freedom's true and brother band, Freedom's strong and honest hand;

"Valleys by the slave untrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' God!" 1844.

TO FANEUIL HALL.

Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Massachusetts Freeman" for a meeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Massachusetts, without distinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and the aggressions of South Carolina, and in favor of decisive action against slavery.

MEN! if manhood still ye claim, If the Northern pulse can thrill, Roused by wrong or stung by shame, Freely, strongly still; Let the sounds of traffic die Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall, Fling the axe and hammer by; Throng to Faneuil Hall!

Wrongs which freemen never brooked, Dangers grim and fierce as they, Which, like couching lions, looked On your fathers' way; These your instant zeal demand, Shaking with their earthquake-call Every rood of Pilgrim land, Ho, to Faneuil Hall!

From your capes and sandy bars, From your mountain-ridges cold, Through whose pines the westering stars Stoop their crowns of gold; Come, and with your footsteps wake Echoes from that holy wall; Once again, for Freedom's sake, Rock your fathers' hall!

Up, and tread beneath your feet Every cord by party spun: Let your hearts together beat As the heart of one. Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, Let them rise or let them fall: Freedom asks your common aid,-- Up, to Faneuil Hall!

Up, and let each voice that speaks Ring from thence to Southern plains, Sharply as the blow which breaks Prison-bolts and chains! Speak as well becomes the free Dreaded more than steel or ball, Shall your calmest utterance be, Heard from Faneuil Hall!

Have they wronged us? Let us then Render back nor threats nor prayers; Have they chained our free-born men? Let us unchain theirs! Up, your banner leads the van, Blazoned, "Liberty for all!"

Finish what your sires began! Up, to Faneuil Hall!

TO MASSACHUSETTS.

WHAT though around thee blazes No fiery rallying sign? From all thy own high places, Give heaven the light of thine! What though unthrilled, unmoving, The statesman stand apart, And comes no warm approving From Mammon's crowded mart?

Still, let the land be shaken By a summons of thine own! By all save truth forsaken, Stand fast with that alone! Shrink not from strife unequal! With the best is always hope; And ever in the sequel God holds the right side up!

But when, with thine uniting, Come voices long and loud, And far-off hills are writing Thy fire-words on the cloud; When from Penobscot's fountains A deep response is heard, And across the Western mountains Rolls back thy rallying word;

Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view? Oh, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true! Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom Speed them onward far and fast Over hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast!

Lo! the Empire State is shaking The shackles from her hand; With the rugged North is waking The level sunset land! On they come, the free battalions East and West and North they come, And the heart-beat of the millions Is the beat of Freedom's drum.

"To the tyrant's plot no favor No heed to place-fed knaves! Bar and bolt the door forever Against the land of slaves!" Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread! The land is roused,--its spirit Was sleeping, but not dead! 1844.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

GOD bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. The long-bound vassal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken! Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changes The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe; To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, New Hampshire thunders an indignant No! Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart, Look upward to those Northern mountains cold, Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled, And gather strength to bear a manlier part All is not lost. The angel of God's blessing Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight; Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing, Unlooked-for allies, striking for the right Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true: What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do? 1845.

THE PINE-TREE.

Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846.

LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!" Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array! What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.

Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries; Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? Would ye barter man for cotton? That your gains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream? Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam?

O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry, "Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet on Mammon's lie! Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's latest pound, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the heart o' the Bay State sound!" Where's the man for Massachusetts! Where's the voice to speak her free? Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? Has she none to break the silence? Has she none to do and dare? O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field 1840.

TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN.

John C. Calhoun, who had strongly urged the extension of slave territory by the annexation of Texas, even if it should involve a war with England, was unwilling to promote the acquisition of Oregon, which would enlarge the Northern domain of freedom, and pleaded as an excuse the peril of foreign complications which he had defied when the interests of slavery were involved.

Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear, Actieon-like, the bay of thine own hounds, Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds? Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand, With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack, To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land, Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back, These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track? Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue, Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung,

O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man? How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting, And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting, Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star! The Fates are just; they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown. There is an Eastern story, not unknown, Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill Called demons up his water-jars to fill; Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, kept pouring still. In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, Faster and faster were the buckets brought, Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in, From out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin, Of the stormed-city and the ghastly plain, Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, The myriad-handed pioneer may pour, And the wild West with the roused North combine And heave the engineer of evil with his mine. 1846.

AT WASHINGTON. Suggested by a visit to the city of Washington, in the 12th month of 1845.

WITH a cold and wintry noon-light On its roofs and steeples shed, Shadows weaving with the sunlight From the gray sky overhead, Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread.

Through this broad street, restless ever, Ebbs and flows a human tide, Wave on wave a living river; Wealth and fashion side by side; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.

Underneath yon dome, whose coping Springs above them, vast and tall, Grave men in the dust are groping For the largess, base and small, Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall.

Base of heart! They vilely barter Honor's wealth for party's place; Step by step on Freedom's charter Leaving footprints of disgrace; For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great hope of their race.

Yet, where festal lamps are throwing Glory round the dancer's hair, Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing Backward on the sunset air; And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure sweet and rare.

There to-night shall woman's glances, Star-like, welcome give to them; Fawning fools with shy advances Seek to touch their garments' hem, With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth condemn.

From this glittering lie my vision Takes a broader, sadder range, Full before me have arisen Other pictures dark and strange; From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness change.

Hark! the heavy gate is swinging On its hinges, harsh and slow; One pale prison lamp is flinging On a fearful group below Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does not show.

Pitying God! Is that a woman On whose wrist the shackles clash? Is that shriek she utters human, Underneath the stinging lash? Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad procession flash?

Still the dance goes gayly onward What is it to Wealth and Pride That without the stars are looking On a scene which earth should hide? That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking on Potomac's tide!

Vainly to that mean Ambition Which, upon a rival's fall, Winds above its old condition, With a reptile's slimy crawl, Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish call.

Vainly to the child of Fashion, Giving to ideal woe Graceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go; Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show!

Nay, my words are all too sweeping: In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping; Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part.

And from yonder sunny valleys, Southward in the distance lost, Freedom yet shall summon allies Worthier than the North can boast, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost.

Now, the soul alone is willing Faint the heart and weak the knee; And as yet no lip is thrilling With the mighty words, "Be Free!" Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be!

Meanwhile, turning from the revel To the prison-cell my sight, For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night!

"To thy duty now and ever! Dream no more of rest or stay Give to Freedom's great endeavor All thou art and hast to-day:" Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say.

Ye with heart and vision gifted To discern and love the right,

Whose worn faces have been lifted To the slowly-growing light, Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of night

Ye who through long years of trial Still have held your purpose fast, While a lengthening shade the dial from the westering sunshine cast, And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of the last!

O my brothers! O my sisters Would to God that ye were near, Gazing with me down the vistas Of a sorrow strange and drear; Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice I seem to hear!

With the storm above us driving, With the false earth mined below, Who shall marvel if thus striving We have counted friend as foe; Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow.

Well it may be that our natures Have grown sterner and more hard, And the freshness of their features Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred, And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred.

Be it so. It should not swerve us From a purpose true and brave; Dearer Freedom's rugged service Than the pastime of the slave; Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the grave.

Let us then, uniting, bury All our idle feuds in dust, And to future conflicts carry Mutual faith and common trust; Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is most just.

From the eternal shadow rounding All our sun and starlight here, Voices of our lost ones sounding Bid us be of heart and cheer, Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear.

Know we not our dead are looking Downward with a sad surprise, All our strife of words rebuking With their mild and loving eyes? Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloud their blessed skies?

Let us draw their mantles o'er us Which have fallen in our way; Let us do the work before us, Cheerly, bravely, while we may, Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day!

THE BRANDED HAND.

Captain Jonathan Walker, of Harwich, Mass., was solicited by several fugitive slaves at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them in his vessel to the British West Indies. Although well aware of the great hazard of the enterprise he attempted to comply with the request, but was seized at sea by an American vessel, consigned to the authorities at Key West, and thence sent back to Pensacola, where, after a long and rigorous confinement in prison, he was tried and sentenced to be branded on his right hand with the letters "S.S." (slave-stealer) and amerced in a heavy fine.

WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day; With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain.

Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim To make God's truth thy falsehood, His holiest work thy shame? When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the iron was withdrawn, How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to scorn!

They change to wrong the duty which God hath written out On the great heart of humanity, too legible for doubt! They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown, Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown!

Why, that brand is highest honor! than its traces never yet Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set; And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of their father's branded hand!

As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back- from Syrian wars The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars, The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span, So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man.

He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, Thou for His living presence in the bound and bleeding slave; He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God.

For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung, From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung, And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God- deserted shrine, Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine;

While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt, And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt; Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadows dim, And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him!

In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below, Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know; God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angels only can, That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is Man!

That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need; But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod, And herds with lower natures the awful form of God!

Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the wave! Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation to the Slave!" Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.

Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air; Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there! Take it henceforth for your standard, like the Bruce's heart of yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before!

And the masters of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line Can the craft of State avail them? Can a Christless church withstand, In the van of Freedom's onset, the coming of that band? 1846.

THE FREED ISLANDS. Written for the anniversary celebration of the first of August, at Milton, 7846.

A FEW brief years have passed away Since Britain drove her million slaves Beneath the tropic's fiery ray God willed their freedom; and to-day Life blooms above those island graves!

He spoke! across the Carib Sea, We heard the clash of breaking chains, And felt the heart-throb of the free, The first, strong pulse of liberty Which thrilled along the bondman's veins.

Though long delayed, and far, and slow, The Briton's triumph shall be ours Wears slavery here a prouder brow Than that which twelve short years ago Scowled darkly from her island bowers?

Mighty alike for good or ill With mother-land, we fully share The Saxon strength, the nerve of steel, The tireless energy of will, The power to do, the pride to dare.

What she has done can we not do? Our hour and men are both at hand; The blast which Freedom's angel blew O'er her green islands, echoes through Each valley of our forest land.

Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn The death of slavery. When it falls, Look to your vassals in their turn, Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn, Your prisons and your palace walls!

O kingly mockers! scoffing show What deeds in Freedom's name we do; Yet know that every taunt ye throw Across the waters, goads our slow Progression towards the right and true.

Not always shall your outraged poor, Appalled by democratic crime, Grind as their fathers ground before; The hour which sees our prison door Swing wide shall be their triumph time.

On then, my brothers! every blow Ye deal is felt the wide earth through; Whatever here uplifts the low Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe, Blesses the Old World through the New.

Take heart! The promised hour draws near; I hear the downward beat of wings, And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear "Joy to the people! woe and fear To new-world tyrants, old-world kings!"

A LETTER.

Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" at Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which resulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the election of John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their authorship was not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They furnish a specimen of the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in which the liberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and political outlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected.

'T is over, Moses! All is lost I hear the bells a-ringing; Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host I hear the Free-Wills singing [4] We're routed, Moses, horse and foot, If there be truth in figures, With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit, And Hale, and all the "niggers."