Part 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger

ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS

SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM

BY

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

CONTENTS:

DERNE A SABBATH SCENE IN THE EVIL DAY MOLOCH IN STATE STREET OFFICIAL PIETY THE RENDITION ARISEN AT LAST THE HASCHISH FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN BURIAL OF BARBER TO PENNSYLVANIA LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA A SONG FOR THE TIME WHAT OF THE DAY? A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS THE PANORAMA ON A PRAYER-BOOK THE SUMMONS TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD

DERNE.

The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine Americans, forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats of hardihood and daring which have in all ages attracted the admiration of the multitude. The higher and holier heroism of Christian self-denial and sacrifice, in the humble walks of private duty, is seldom so well appreciated.

NIGHT on the city of the Moor! On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore, On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock The narrow harbor-gates unlock, On corsair's galley, carack tall, And plundered Christian caraval! The sounds of Moslem life are still; No mule-bell tinkles down the hill; Stretched in the broad court of the khan, The dusty Bornou caravan Lies heaped in slumber, beast and man; The Sheik is dreaming in his tent, His noisy Arab tongue o'erspent; The kiosk's glimmering lights are gone, The merchant with his wares withdrawn; Rough pillowed on some pirate breast, The dancing-girl has sunk to rest; And, save where measured footsteps fall Along the Bashaw's guarded wall, Or where, like some bad dream, the Jew Creeps stealthily his quarter through, Or counts with fear his golden heaps, The City of the Corsair sleeps.

But where yon prison long and low Stands black against the pale star-glow, Chafed by the ceaseless wash of waves, There watch and pine the Christian slaves; Rough-bearded men, whose far-off wives Wear out with grief their lonely lives; And youth, still flashing from his eyes The clear blue of New England skies, A treasured lock of whose soft hair Now wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer; Or, worn upon some maiden breast, Stirs with the loving heart's unrest.

A bitter cup each life must drain, The groaning earth is cursed with pain, And, like the scroll the angel bore The shuddering Hebrew seer before, O'erwrit alike, without, within, With all the woes which follow sin; But, bitterest of the ills beneath Whose load man totters down to death, Is that which plucks the regal crown Of Freedom from his forehead down, And snatches from his powerless hand The sceptred sign of self-command, Effacing with the chain and rod The image and the seal of God; Till from his nature, day by day, The manly virtues fall away, And leave him naked, blind and mute, The godlike merging in the brute!

Why mourn the quiet ones who die Beneath affection's tender eye, Unto their household and their kin Like ripened corn-sheaves gathered in? O weeper, from that tranquil sod, That holy harvest-home of God, Turn to the quick and suffering, shed Thy tears upon the living dead Thank God above thy dear ones' graves, They sleep with Him, they are not slaves.

What dark mass, down the mountain-sides Swift-pouring, like a stream divides? A long, loose, straggling caravan, Camel and horse and armed man. The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'er Its grave of waters to the shore, Lights tip that mountain cavalcade, And gleams from gun and spear and blade Near and more near! now o'er them falls The shadow of the city walls. Hark to the sentry's challenge, drowned In the fierce trumpet's charging sound! The rush of men, the musket's peal, The short, sharp clang of meeting steel!

Vain, Moslem, vain thy lifeblood poured So freely on thy foeman's sword! Not to the swift nor to the strong The battles of the right belong; For he who strikes for Freedom wears The armor of the captive's prayers, And Nature proffers to his cause The strength of her eternal laws; While he whose arm essays to bind And herd with common brutes his kind Strives evermore at fearful odds With Nature and the jealous gods, And dares the dread recoil which late Or soon their right shall vindicate.

'T is done, the horned crescent falls The star-flag flouts the broken walls Joy to the captive husband! joy To thy sick heart, O brown-locked boy! In sullen wrath the conquered Moor Wide open flings your dungeon-door, And leaves ye free from cell and chain, The owners of yourselves again. Dark as his allies desert-born, Soiled with the battle's stain, and worn With the long marches of his band Through hottest wastes of rock and sand, Scorched by the sun and furnace-breath Of the red desert's wind of death, With welcome words and grasping hands, The victor and deliverer stands!

The tale is one of distant skies; The dust of half a century lies Upon it; yet its hero's name Still lingers on the lips of Fame. Men speak the praise of him who gave Deliverance to the Moorman's slave, Yet dare to brand with shame and crime The heroes of our land and time,-- The self-forgetful ones, who stake Home, name, and life for Freedom's sake. God mend his heart who cannot feel The impulse of a holy zeal, And sees not, with his sordid eyes, The beauty of self-sacrifice Though in the sacred place he stands, Uplifting consecrated hands, Unworthy are his lips to tell Of Jesus' martyr-miracle, Or name aright that dread embrace Of suffering for a fallen race! 1850.

A SABBATH SCENE.

This poem finds its justification in the readiness with which, even in the North, clergymen urged the prompt execution of the Fugitive Slave Law as a Christian duty, and defended the system of slavery as a Bible institution.

SCARCE had the solemn Sabbath-bell Ceased quivering in the steeple, Scarce had the parson to his desk Walked stately through his people, When down the summer-shaded street A wasted female figure, With dusky brow and naked feet,

Came rushing wild and eager. She saw the white spire through the trees, She heard the sweet hymn swelling O pitying Christ! a refuge give That poor one in Thy dwelling!

Like a scared fawn before the hounds, Right up the aisle she glided, While close behind her, whip in hand, A lank-haired hunter strided.

She raised a keen and bitter cry, To Heaven and Earth appealing; Were manhood's generous pulses dead? Had woman's heart no feeling?

A score of stout hands rose between The hunter and the flying: Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyes Flashed tearful, yet defying.

"Who dares profane this house and day?" Cried out the angry pastor. "Why, bless your soul, the wench's a slave, And I'm her lord and master!

"I've law and gospel on my side, And who shall dare refuse me?" Down came the parson, bowing low, "My good sir, pray excuse me!

"Of course I know your right divine To own and work and whip her; Quick, deacon, throw that Polyglott Before the wench, and trip her!"

Plump dropped the holy tome, and o'er Its sacred pages stumbling, Bound hand and foot, a slave once more, The hapless wretch lay trembling.

I saw the parson tie the knots, The while his flock addressing, The Scriptural claims of slavery With text on text impressing.

"Although," said he, "on Sabbath day All secular occupations Are deadly sins, we must fulfil Our moral obligations:

"And this commends itself as one To every conscience tender; As Paul sent back Onesimus, My Christian friends, we send her!"

Shriek rose on shriek,--the Sabbath air Her wild cries tore asunder; I listened, with hushed breath, to hear God answering with his thunder!

All still! the very altar's cloth Had smothered down her shrieking, And, dumb, she turned from face to face, For human pity seeking!

I saw her dragged along the aisle, Her shackles harshly clanking; I heard the parson, over all, The Lord devoutly thanking!

My brain took fire: "Is this," I cried, "The end of prayer and preaching? Then down with pulpit, down with priest, And give us Nature's teaching!

"Foul shame and scorn be on ye all Who turn the good to evil, And steal the Bible, from the Lord, To give it to the Devil!

"Than garbled text or parchment law I own a statute higher; And God is true, though every book And every man's a liar!"

Just then I felt the deacon's hand In wrath my coattail seize on; I heard the priest cry, "Infidel!" The lawyer mutter, "Treason!"

I started up,--where now were church, Slave, master, priest, and people? I only heard the supper-bell, Instead of clanging steeple.

But, on the open window's sill, O'er which the white blooms drifted, The pages of a good old Book The wind of summer lifted,

And flower and vine, like angel wings Around the Holy Mother, Waved softly there, as if God's truth And Mercy kissed each other.

And freely from the cherry-bough Above the casement swinging, With golden bosom to the sun, The oriole was singing.

As bird and flower made plain of old The lesson of the Teacher, So now I heard the written Word Interpreted by Nature.

For to my ear methought the breeze Bore Freedom's blessed word on; Thus saith the Lord: Break every yoke, Undo the heavy burden 1850.

IN THE EVIL DAYS.

This and the four following poems have special reference to that darkest hour in the aggression of slavery which preceded the dawn of a better day, when the conscience of the people was roused to action.

THE evil days have come, the poor Are made a prey; Bar up the hospitable door, Put out the fire-lights, point no more The wanderer's way.

For Pity now is crime; the chain Which binds our States Is melted at her hearth in twain, Is rusted by her tears' soft rain Close up her gates.

Our Union, like a glacier stirred By voice below, Or bell of kine, or wing of bird, A beggar's crust, a kindly word May overthrow!

Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast Our blood and name; Bursting its century-bolted frost, Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast Cries out for shame!

Oh for the open firmament, The prairie free, The desert hillside, cavern-rent, The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent, The Bushman's tree!

Than web of Persian loom most rare, Or soft divan, Better the rough rock, bleak and bare, Or hollow tree, which man may share With suffering man.

I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law, Let Love be dumb; Clasping her liberal hands in awe, Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw From hearth and home."

I hear another voice: "The poor Are thine to feed; Turn not the outcast from thy door, Nor give to bonds and wrong once more Whom God hath freed."

Dear Lord! between that law and Thee No choice remains; Yet not untrue to man's decree, Though spurning its rewards, is he Who bears its pains.

Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast And threatening word; I read the lesson of the Past, That firm endurance wins at last More than the sword.

O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou So calm and strong! Lend strength to weakness, teach us how The sleepless eyes of God look through This night of wrong 1850.

MOLOCH IN STATE STREET.

In a foot-note of the Report of the Senate of Massachusetts on the case of the arrest and return to bondage of the fugitive slave Thomas Sims it is stated that--"It would have been impossible for the U. S. marshal thus successfully to have resisted the law of the State, without the assistance of the municipal authorities of Boston, and the countenance and support of a numerous, wealthy, and powerful body of citizens. It was in evidence that 1500 of the most wealthy and respectable citizens-merchants, bankers, and others--volunteered their services to aid the marshal on this occasion. . . . No watch was kept upon the doings of the marshal, and while the State officers slept, after the moon had gone down, in the darkest hour before daybreak, the accused was taken out of our jurisdiction by the armed police of the city of Boston."

THE moon has set: while yet the dawn Breaks cold and gray, Between the midnight and the morn Bear off your prey!

On, swift and still! the conscious street Is panged and stirred; Tread light! that fall of serried feet The dead have heard!

The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins Gushed where ye tread; Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stains Blush darkly red!

Beneath the slowly waning stars And whitening day, What stern and awful presence bars That sacred way?

What faces frown upon ye, dark With shame and pain? Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark? Is that young Vane?

Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on With mocking cheer? Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson, And Gage are here!

For ready mart or favoring blast Through Moloch's fire, Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed The Tyrian sire.

Ye make that ancient sacrifice Of Mail to Gain, Your traffic thrives, where Freedom dies, Beneath the chain.

Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scorn And hate, is near; How think ye freemen, mountain-born, The tale will hear?

Thank God! our mother State can yet Her fame retrieve; To you and to your children let The scandal cleave.

Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press, Make gods of gold; Let honor, truth, and manliness Like wares be sold.

Your hoards are great, your walls are strong, But God is just; The gilded chambers built by wrong Invite the rust.

What! know ye not the gains of Crime Are dust and dross; Its ventures on the waves of time Foredoomed to loss!

And still the Pilgrim State remains What she hath been; Her inland hills, her seaward plains, Still nurture men!

Nor wholly lost the fallen mart; Her olden blood Through many a free and generous heart Still pours its flood.

That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet, Shall know no check, Till a free people's foot is set On Slavery's neck.

Even now, the peal of bell and gun, And hills aflame, Tell of the first great triumph won In Freedom's name. [10]

The long night dies: the welcome gray Of dawn we see; Speed up the heavens thy perfect day, God of the free! 1851.

OFFICIAL PIETY.

Suggested by reading a state paper, wherein the higher law is invoked to sustain the lower one.

A Pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh? Sin in high places has become devout, Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety! The pirate, watching from his bloody deck The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold Of Acapulco, holding death in check While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told; The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss From his own carbine, glancing still abroad For some new victim, offering thanks to God! Rome, listening at her altars to the cry Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high, Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, "Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!" What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack? Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase And saintly posture, gives to God the praise And honor of the monstrous progeny. What marvel, then, in our own time to see His old devices, smoothly acted o'er,-- Official piety, locking fast the door Of Hope against three million soups of men,-- Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed,--and then, With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee, Whining a prayer for help to hide the key! 1853.

THE RENDITION. On the 2d of June, 1854, Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, after being under arrest for ten days in the Boston Court House, was remanded to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act, and taken down State Street to a steamer chartered by the United States Government, under guard of United States troops and artillery, Massachusetts militia and Boston police. Public excitement ran high, a futile attempt to rescue Burns having been made during his confinement, and the streets were crowded with tens of thousands of people, of whom many came from other towns and cities of the State to witness the humiliating spectacle.

I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, I saw an earnest look beseech, And rather by that look than speech My neighbor told me all.

And, as I thought of Liberty Marched handcuffed down that sworded street, The solid earth beneath my feet Reeled fluid as the sea.

I felt a sense of bitter loss,-- Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, And loathing fear, as if my path A serpent stretched across.

All love of home, all pride of place, All generous confidence and trust, Sank smothering in that deep disgust And anguish of disgrace.

Down on my native hills of June, And home's green quiet, hiding all, Fell sudden darkness like the fall Of midnight upon noon.

And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God The blasphemy of wrong.

"O Mother, from thy memories proud, Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, Lend this dead air a breeze of health, And smite with stars this cloud.

"Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, Rise awful in thy strength," I said; Ah me! I spake but to the dead; I stood upon her grave! 6th mo., 1854.

ARISEN AT LAST.

On the passage of the bill to protect the rights and liberties of the people of the State against the Fugitive Slave Act.

I SAID I stood upon thy grave, My Mother State, when last the moon Of blossoms clomb the skies of June.

And, scattering ashes on my head, I wore, undreaming of relief, The sackcloth of thy shame and grief.

Again that moon of blossoms shines On leaf and flower and folded wing, And thou hast risen with the spring!

Once more thy strong maternal arms Are round about thy children flung,-- A lioness that guards her young!

No threat is on thy closed lips, But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from its light.

Southward the baffled robber's track Henceforth runs only; hereaway, The fell lycanthrope finds no prey.

Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, His first low howl shall downward draw The thunder of thy righteous law.

Not mindless of thy trade and gain, But, acting on the wiser plan, Thou'rt grown conservative of man.

So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, Dream-painted on the sightless eyes Of him who sang of Paradise,--

The vision of a Christian man, In virtue, as in stature great Embodied in a Christian State.

And thou, amidst thy sisterhood Forbearing long, yet standing fast, Shalt win their grateful thanks at last;

When North and South shall strive no more, And all their feuds and fears be lost In Freedom's holy Pentecost. 6th mo., 1855.

THE HASCHISH.

OF all that Orient lands can vaunt Of marvels with our own competing, The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what will follow on its eating.

What pictures to the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances! Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances!

The poppy visions of Cathay, The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian; The wizard lights and demon play Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian!

The Mollah and the Christian dog Change place in mad metempsychosis; The Muezzin climbs the synagogue, The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses!

The Arab by his desert well Sits choosing from some Caliph's daughters, And hears his single camel's bell Sound welcome to his regal quarters.

The Koran's reader makes complaint Of Shitan dancing on and off it; The robber offers alms, the saint Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet.

Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes; But we have one ordained to beat it, The Haschish of the West, which makes Or fools or knaves of all who eat it.

The preacher eats, and straight appears His Bible in a new translation; Its angels negro overseers, And Heaven itself a snug plantation!

The man of peace, about whose dreams The sweet millennial angels cluster, Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes, A raving Cuban filibuster!

The noisiest Democrat, with ease, It turns to Slavery's parish beadle; The shrewdest statesman eats and sees Due southward point the polar needle.

The Judge partakes, and sits erelong Upon his bench a railing blackguard; Decides off-hand that right is wrong, And reads the ten commandments backward.

O potent plant! so rare a taste Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten; The hempen Haschish of the East Is powerless to our Western Cotton! 1854.

FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE.

Inscribed to friends under arrest for treason against the slave power.

THE age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk; with blood too pale and tame To pay the debt they owe to shame; Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep Six days to Mammon, one to Cant.

In such a time, give thanks to God, That somewhat of the holy rage With which the prophets in their age On all its decent seemings trod, Has set your feet upon the lie, That man and ox and soul and clod Are market stock to sell and buy!

The hot words from your lips, my own, To caution trained, might not repeat; But if some tares among the wheat Of generous thought and deed were sown, No common wrong provoked your zeal; The silken gauntlet that is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel.

The brave old strife the fathers saw For Freedom calls for men again Like those who battled not in vain For England's Charter, Alfred's law; And right of speech and trial just Wage in your name their ancient war With venal courts and perjured trust.

God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, They touch the shining hills of day; The evil cannot brook delay, The good can well afford to wait. Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; Ye have the future grand and great, The safe appeal of Truth to Time! 1855.

THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.

This poem and the three following were called out by the popular movement of Free State men to occupy the territory of Kansas, and by the use of the great democratic weapon--an over-powering majority--to settle the conflict on that ground between Freedom and Slavery. The opponents of the movement used another kind of weapon.

WE cross the prairie as of old The pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free!

We go to rear a wall of men On Freedom's southern line, And plant beside the cotton-tree The rugged Northern pine!

We're flowing from our native hills As our free rivers flow; The blessing of our Mother-land Is on us as we go.

We go to plant her common schools, On distant prairie swells, And give the Sabbaths of the wild The music of her bells.

Upbearing, like the Ark of old, The Bible in our van, We go to test the truth of God Against the fraud of man.

No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun.

We'll tread the prairie as of old Our fathers sailed the sea, And make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free! 1854.

LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN.

DOUGLAS MISSION, August, 1854,