Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 24

For G.o.d be praised! New England Takes once more her ancient place; Again the Pilgrim's banner Leads the vanguard of the race.

Then sound again the bugles, etc.

Along the lordly Hudson, A shout of triumph breaks; The Empire State is speaking, From the ocean to the lakes.

Then sound again the bugles, etc.

The Northern hills are blazing, The Northern skies are bright; And the fair young West is turning Her forehead to the light!

Then sound again the bugles, etc.

Push every outpost nearer, Press hard the hostile towers!

Another Balaklava, And the Malakoff is ours!

Then sound again the bugles, Call the muster-roll anew; If months have well-nigh won the field, What may not four years do?

THE PANORAMA.

"A! fredome is a n.o.bill thing!

Fredome mayse man to haif liking.

Fredome all solace to man giffis; He levys at ese that frely levys A n.o.bil hart may haif nane ese Na ellvs nocht that may him plese Gyff Fredome failythe."

ARCHDEACON BARBOUR.

THROUGH the long hall the shuttered windows shed A dubious light on every upturned head; On locks like those of Absalom the fair, On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair, On blank indifference and on curious stare; On the pale Showman reading from his stage The hieroglyphics of that facial page; Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot, And the shrill call, across the general din, "Roll up your curtain! Let the show begin!"

At length a murmur like the winds that break Into green waves the prairie's gra.s.sy lake, Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud, And, as the west-wind lifts a summer cloud, The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far A green land stretching to the evening star, Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees And flowers hummed over by the desert bees, Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show Fantastic outcrops of the rock below; The slow result of patient Nature's pains, And plastic fingering of her sun and rains; Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine; Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind A fancy, idle as the prairie wind, Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed; The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West.

Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells surpa.s.s The Tartar's marvels of his Land of Gra.s.s, Vast as the sky against whose sunset sh.o.r.es Wave after wave the billowy greenness pours; And, onward still, like islands in that main Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain chain, Whence east and west a thousand waters run From winter lingering under summer's sun.

And, still beyond, long lines of foam and sand Tell where Pacific rolls his waves a-land, From many a wide-lapped port and land-locked bay, Opening with thunderous pomp the world's highway To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far Cathay.

"Such," said the Showman, as the curtain fell, "Is the new Canaan of our Israel; The land of promise to the swarming North, Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus forth, To the poor Southron on his worn-out soil, Scathed by the curses of unnatural toil; To Europe's exiles seeking home and rest, And the lank nomads of the wandering West, Who, asking neither, in their love of change And the free bison's amplitude of range, Rear the log-hut, for present shelter meant, Not future comfort, like an Arab's tent."

Then spake a shrewd on-looker, "Sir," said he, "I like your picture, but I fain would see A sketch of what your promised land will be When, with electric nerve, and fiery-brained, With Nature's forces to its chariot chained, The future grasping, by the past obeyed, The twentieth century rounds a new decade."

Then said the Showman, sadly: "He who grieves Over the scattering of the sibyl's leaves Unwisely mourns. Suffice it, that we know What needs must ripen from the seed we sow; That present time is but the mould wherein We cast the shapes of holiness and sin.

A painful watcher of the pa.s.sing hour, Its l.u.s.t of gold, its strife for place and power; Its lack of manhood, honor, reverence, truth, Wise-thoughted age, and generous-hearted youth; Nor yet unmindful of each better sign, The low, far lights, which on th' horizon s.h.i.+ne, Like those which sometimes tremble on the rim Of clouded skies when day is closing dim, Flas.h.i.+ng athwart the purple spears of rain The hope of suns.h.i.+ne on the hills again I need no prophet's word, nor shapes that pa.s.s Like clouding shadows o'er a magic gla.s.s; For now, as ever, pa.s.sionless and cold, Doth the dread angel of the future hold Evil and good before us, with no voice Or warning look to guide us in our choice; With spectral hands outreaching through the gloom The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom.

Transferred from these, it now remains to give The sun and shade of Fate's alternative."

Then, with a burst of music, touching all The keys of thrifty life,--the mill-stream's fall, The engine's pant along its quivering rails, The anvil's ring, the measured beat of flails, The sweep of scythes, the reaper's whistled tune, Answering the summons of the bells of noon, The woodman's hail along the river sh.o.r.es, The steamboat's signal, and the dip of oars Slowly the curtain rose from off a land Fair as G.o.d's garden. Broad on either hand The golden wheat-fields glimmered in the sun, And the tall maize its yellow ta.s.sels spun.

Smooth highways set with hedge-rows living green, With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen, The school-house murmuring with its hive-like swarm, The brook-bank whitening in the grist-mill's storm, The painted farm-house s.h.i.+ning through the leaves Of fruited orchards bending at its eaves, Where live again, around the Western hearth, The homely old-time virtues of the North; Where the blithe housewife rises with the day, And well-paid labor counts his task a play.

And, grateful tokens of a Bible free, And the free Gospel of Humanity, Of diverse-sects and differing names the shrines, One in their faith, whate'er their outward signs, Like varying strophes of the same sweet hymn From many a prairie's swell and river's brim, A thousand church-spires sanctify the air Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign of prayer.

Like sudden nightfall over bloom and green The curtain dropped: and, momently, between The clank of fetter and the crack of thong, Half sob, half laughter, music swept along; A strange refrain, whose idle words and low, Like drunken mourners, kept the time of woe; As if the revellers at a masquerade Heard in the distance funeral marches played.

Such music, das.h.i.+ng all his smiles with tears, The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears, Where, through the noonday dusk of wooded sh.o.r.es The negro boatman, singing to his oars, With a wild pathos borrowed of his wrong Redeems the jargon of his senseless song.

"Look," said the Showman, sternly, as he rolled His curtain upward. "Fate's reverse behold!"

A village straggling in loose disarray Of vulgar newness, premature decay; A tavern, crazy with its whiskey brawls, With "Slaves at Auction!" garnis.h.i.+ng its walls; Without, surrounded by a motley crowd, The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous and loud, A squire or colonel in his pride of place, Known at free fights, the caucus, and the race, Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot, And silence doubters with a ten-pace shot, Mingling the negro-driving bully's rant With pious phrase and democratic cant, Yet never scrupling, with a filthy jest, To sell the infant from its mother's breast, Break through all ties of wedlock, home, and kin, Yield shrinking girlhood up to graybeard sin; Sell all the virtues with his human stock, The Christian graces on his auction-block, And coolly count on shrewdest bargains driven In hearts regenerate, and in souls forgiven!

Look once again! The moving canvas shows A slave plantation's slovenly repose, Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds, The human chattel eats, and sleeps, and breeds; And, held a brute, in practice, as in law, Becomes in fact the thing he's taken for.

There, early summoned to the hemp and corn, The nursing mother leaves her child new-born; There haggard sickness, weak and deathly faint, Crawls to his task, and fears to make complaint; And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in decay, Weep for their lost ones sold and torn away!

Of ampler size the master's dwelling stands, In shabby keeping with his half-tilled lands; The gates unhinged, the yard with weeds unclean, The cracked veranda with a tipsy lean.

Without, loose-scattered like a wreck adrift, Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift; Within, profusion to discomfort joined, The listless body and the vacant mind; The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, born In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene, Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean, From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise, Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies, Taint infant lips beyond all after cure, With the fell poison of a breast impure; Touch boyhood's pa.s.sions with the breath of flame, From girlhood's instincts steal the blush of shame.

So swells, from low to high, from weak to strong, The tragic chorus of the baleful wrong; Guilty or guiltless, all within its range Feel the blind justice of its sure revenge.

Still scenes like these the moving chart reveals.

Up the long western steppes the blighting steals; Down the Pacific slope the evil Fate Glides like a shadow to the Golden Gate From sea to sea the drear eclipse is thrown, From sea to sea the Mauvaises Terres have grown, A belt of curses on the New World's zone!

The curtain fell. All drew a freer breath, As men are wont to do when mournful death Is covered from their sight. The Showman stood With drooping brow in sorrow's att.i.tude One moment, then with sudden gesture shook His loose hair back, and with the air and look Of one who felt, beyond the narrow stage And listening group, the presence of the age, And heard the footsteps of the things to be, Poured out his soul in earnest words and free.

"O friends!" he said, "in this poor trick of paint You see the semblance, incomplete and faint, Of the two-fronted Future, which, to-day, Stands dim and silent, waiting in your way.

To-day, your servant, subject to your will; To-morrow, master, or for good or ill.

If the dark face of Slavery on you turns, If the mad curse its paper barrier spurns, If the world granary of the West is made The last foul market of the slaver's trade, Why rail at fate? The mischief is your own.

Why hate your neighbor? Blame yourselves alone!

"Men of the North! The South you charge with wrong Is weak and poor, while you are rich and strong.

If questions,--idle and absurd as those The old-time monks and Paduan doctors chose,-- Mere ghosts of questions, tariffs, and dead banks, And scarecrow pontiffs, never broke your ranks, Your thews united could, at once, roll back The jostled nation to its primal track.

Nay, were you simply steadfast, manly, just, True to the faith your fathers left in trust, If stainless honor outweighed in your scale A codfish quintal or a factory bale, Full many a n.o.ble heart, (and such remain In all the South, like Lot in Siddim's plain, Who watch and wait, and from the wrong's control Keep white and pure their chast.i.ty of soul,) Now sick to loathing of your weak complaints, Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as saints, Would half-way meet the frankness of your tone, And feel their pulses beating with your own.

"The North! the South! no geographic line Can fix the boundary or the point define, Since each with each so closely interblends, Where Slavery rises, and where Freedom ends.

Beneath your rocks the roots, far-reaching, hide Of the fell Upas on the Southern side; The tree whose branches in your northwinds wave Dropped its young blossoms on Mount Vernon's grave; The nursling growth of Monticello's crest Is now the glory of the free Northwest; To the wise maxims of her olden school Virginia listened from thy lips, Rantoul; Seward's words of power, and Sumner's fresh renown, Flow from the pen that Jefferson laid down!

And when, at length, her years of madness o'er, Like the crowned grazer on Euphrates' sh.o.r.e, From her long lapse to savagery, her mouth Bitter with baneful herbage, turns the South, Resumes her old attire, and seeks to smooth Her unkempt tresses at the gla.s.s of truth, Her early faith shall find a tongue again, New Wythes and Pinckneys swell that old refrain, Her sons with yours renew the ancient pact, The myth of Union prove at last a fact!

Then, if one murmur mars the wide content, Some Northern lip will drawl the last dissent, Some Union-saving patriot of your own Lament to find his occupation gone.

"Grant that the North 's insulted, scorned, betrayed, O'erreached in bargains with her neighbor made, When selfish thrift and party held the scales For peddling d.i.c.ker, not for honest sales,-- Whom shall we strike? Who most deserves our blame?

The braggart Southron, open in his aim, And bold as wicked, cras.h.i.+ng straight through all That bars his purpose, like a cannon-ball?

Or the mean traitor, breathing northern air, With nasal speech and puritanic hair, Whose cant the loss of principle survives, As the mud-turtle e'en its head outlives; Who, caught, chin-buried in some foul offence, Puts on a look of injured innocence, And consecrates his baseness to the cause Of const.i.tution, union, and the laws?

"Praise to the place-man who can hold aloof His still unpurchased manhood, office-proof; Who on his round of duty walks erect, And leaves it only rich in self-respect; As More maintained his virtue's lofty port In the Eighth Henry's base and b.l.o.o.d.y court.

But, if exceptions here and there are found, Who tread thus safely on enchanted ground, The normal type, the fitting symbol still Of those who fatten at the public mill, Is the chained dog beside his master's door, Or Circe's victim, feeding on all four!

"Give me the heroes who, at tuck of drum, Salute thy staff, immortal Quattleb.u.m!

Or they who, doubly armed with vote and gun, Following thy lead, ill.u.s.trious Atchison, Their drunken franchise s.h.i.+ft from scene to scene, As tile-beard Jourdan did his guillotine!

Rather than him who, born beneath our skies, To Slavery's hand its supplest tool supplies; The party felon whose unblus.h.i.+ng face Looks from the pillory of his bribe of place, And coolly makes a merit of disgrace, Points to the footmarks of indignant scorn, Shows the deep scars of satire's tossing horn; And pa.s.ses to his credit side the sum Of all that makes a scoundrel's martyrdom!

"Bane of the North, its canker and its moth!

These modern Esaus, bartering rights for broth!

Taxing our justice, with their double claim, As fools for pity, and as knaves for blame; Who, urged by party, sect, or trade, within The fell embrace of Slavery's sphere of sin, Part at the outset with their moral sense, The watchful angel set for Truth's defence; Confound all contrasts, good and ill; reverse The poles of life, its blessing and its curse; And lose thenceforth from their perverted sight The eternal difference 'twixt the wrong and right; To them the Law is but the iron span That girds the ankles of imbruted man; To them the Gospel has no higher aim Than simple sanction of the master's claim, Dragged in the slime of Slavery's loathsome trail, Like Chalier's Bible at his a.s.s's tail!

"Such are the men who, with instinctive dread, Whenever Freedom lifts her drooping head, Make prophet-tripods of their office-stools, And scare the nurseries and the village schools With dire presage of ruin grim and great, A broken Union and a foundered State!

Such are the patriots, self-bound to the stake Of office, martyrs for their country's sake Who fill themselves the hungry jaws of Fate; And by their loss of manhood save the State.

In the wide gulf themselves like Cortius throw, And test the virtues of cohesive dough; As tropic monkeys, linking heads and tails, Bridge o'er some torrent of Ecuador's vales!

"Such are the men who in your churches rave To swearing-point, at mention of the slave!

When some poor parson, haply unawares, Stammers of freedom in his timid prayers; Who, if some foot-sore negro through the town Steals northward, volunteer to hunt him down.

Or, if some neighbor, flying from disease, Courts the mild balsam of the Southern breeze, With hue and cry pursue him on his track, And write Free-soiler on the poor man's back.

Such are the men who leave the pedler's cart, While faring South, to learn the driver's art, Or, in white neckcloth, soothe with pious aim The graceful sorrows of some languid dame, Who, from the wreck of her bereavement, saves The double charm of widowhood and slaves Pliant and apt, they lose no chance to show To what base depths apostasy can go; Outdo the natives in their readiness To roast a negro, or to mob a press; Poise a tarred schoolmate on the lyncher's rail, Or make a bonfire of their birthplace mail!

"So some poor wretch, whose lips no longer bear The sacred burden of his mother's prayer, By fear impelled, or l.u.s.t of gold enticed, Turns to the Crescent from the Cross of Christ, And, over-acting in superfluous zeal, Crawls prostrate where the faithful only kneel, Out-howls the Dervish, hugs his rags to court The squalid Santon's sanct.i.ty of dirt; And, when beneath the city gateway's span Files slow and long the Meccan caravan, And through its midst, pursued by Islam's prayers, The prophet's Word some favored camel bears, The marked apostate has his place a.s.signed The Koran-bearer's sacred rump behind, With brush and pitcher following, grave and mute, In meek attendance on the holy brute!