Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform Part 33

1865.

AFTER THE WAR.

THE PEACE AUTUMN.

Written for the Fss.e.x County Agricultural Festival, 1865.

THANK G.o.d for rest, where none molest, And none can make afraid; For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest Beneath the homestead shade!

Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge, The negro's broken chains, And beat them at the blacksmith's forge To ploughshares for our plains.

Alike henceforth our hills of snow, And vales where cotton flowers; All streams that flow, all winds that blow, Are Freedom's motive-powers.

Henceforth to Labor's chivalry Be knightly honors paid; For n.o.bler than the sword's shall be The sickle's accolade.

Build up an altar to the Lord, O grateful hearts of ours And shape it of the greenest sward That ever drank the showers.

Lay all the bloom of gardens there, And there the orchard fruits; Bring golden grain from sun and air, From earth her goodly roots.

There let our banners droop and flow, The stars uprise and fall; Our roll of martyrs, sad and slow, Let sighing breezes call.

Their names let hands of horn and tan And rough-shod feet applaud, Who died to make the slave a man, And link with toil reward.

There let the common heart keep time To such an anthem sung As never swelled on poet's rhyme, Or thrilled on singer's tongue.

Song of our burden and relief, Of peace and long annoy; The pa.s.sion of our mighty grief And our exceeding joy!

A song of praise to Him who filled The harvests sown in tears, And gave each field a double yield To feed our battle-years.

A song of faith that trusts the end To match the good begun, Nor doubts the power of Love to blend The hearts of men as one!

TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS.

The thirty-ninth congress was that which met in 1865 after the close of the war, when it was charged with the great question of reconstruction; the uppermost subject in men's minds was the standing of those who had recently been in arms against the Union and their relations to the freedmen.

O PEOPLE-CHOSEN! are ye not Likewise the chosen of the Lord, To do His will and speak His word?

From the loud thunder-storm of war Not man alone hath called ye forth, But He, the G.o.d of all the earth!

The torch of vengeance in your hands He quenches; unto Him belongs The solemn recompense of wrongs.

Enough of blood the land has seen, And not by cell or gallows-stair Shall ye the way of G.o.d prepare.

Say to the pardon-seekers: Keep Your manhood, bend no suppliant knees, Nor palter with unworthy pleas.

Above your voices sounds the wail Of starving men; we shut in vain *

Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain. **

What words can drown that bitter cry?

What tears wash out the stain of death?

What oaths confirm your broken faith?

From you alone the guaranty Of union, freedom, peace, we claim; We urge no conqueror's terms of shame.

Alas! no victor's pride is ours; We bend above our triumphs won Like David o'er his rebel son.

Be men, not beggars. Cancel all By one brave, generous action; trust Your better instincts, and be just.

Make all men peers before the law, Take hands from off the negro's throat, Give black and white an equal vote.

Keep all your forfeit lives and lands, But give the common law's redress To labor's utter nakedness.

Revive the old heroic will; Be in the right as brave and strong As ye have proved yourselves in wrong.

Defeat shall then be victory, Your loss the wealth of full amends, And hate be love, and foes be friends.

Then buried be the dreadful past, Its common slain be mourned, and let All memories soften to regret.

Then shall the Union's mother-heart Her lost and wandering ones recall, Forgiving and restoring all,--

And Freedom break her marble trance Above the Capitolian dome, Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome home November, 1865.

* Andersonville prison.

** The ma.s.sacre of Negro troops at Fort Pillow.

THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG.

IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame, So terrible alive, Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became The wandering wild bees' hive; And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore Those jaws of death apart, In after time drew forth their honeyed store To strengthen his strong heart.

Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept To wake beneath our sky; Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept Back to its lair to die, Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds, A stained and shattered drum Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds, The wild bees go and come.

Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel, They wander wide and far, Along green hillsides, sown with shot and sh.e.l.l, Through vales once choked with war.

The low reveille of their battle-drum Disturbs no morning prayer; With deeper peace in summer noons their hum Fills all the drowsy air.