The Liberty Minstrel Part 20

[Music]

Let the floods clap their hands, Let the mountains rejoice, Let all the glad lands Breathe a jubilant voice; The sun that now sets on the waves of the sea Shall gild with his rising the land of the free.

Let the islands be glad!

For their King in his might, Who his glory hath clad With a garment of light, In the waters the beams of his chambers hath laid, And in the green waters his pathway hath made.

No more shall the deep, Lend its awe-stricken waves, In their caverns to steep Its wild burden of slaves; The Lord sitteth King--sitteth King on the flood, He heard, and hath answered the voice of their blood.

Dispel the blue haze, Golden fountain of morn!

With meridian blaze The wide ocean adorn: The sunlight has touched the glad waves of the sea, And day now illumines the land of the free.

THE LITTLE SLAVE GIRL.

Words by a Lady. Air--Morgiana in Ireland.

[Music]

When bright morning lights the hills, Where free children sing most cheerily, My young breast with sorrow fills, While here I plod my way so wearily: Sad my face, more sad my heart, From home, from all I had to part, A loving mother, my sister, my brother, For chains and lash in hopeless misery, Children try it, could you try it; But one day to live in slavery, Children try it, try it, try it; Come, come, give me liberty.

Ere I close my eyes to sleep, Thoughts of home keep coming over me; All alone I wake and weep-- Yet mother hears not--no one pities me-- Never smiling, sick, forlorn, Oh that I had ne'er been born!

I should not sorrow to die to-morrow, Then mother earth would kindly shelter me; Children try it, could you try it!

Give me freedom, yes, from misery!

Children try it, try it, try it!

Come, come, give me Liberty!

STOLEN WE WERE.

Words by a Colored Man.

[Music]

Stolen we were from Africa, Transported to America; It's work all day and half the night, And rise before the morning light; Sinner! man! why don't you repent?

For the judgment is rolling around!

For the judgment is rolling around!

Like the brute beast in public street, Endure the cold and stand the heat; King Jesus told you once before To go your way and sin no more; Sinner! man! &c.

If e'er I reach the Northern sh.o.r.e, I'll ne'er go back, no, never more; I think I hear these ladies say, We'll sing for Freedom night and day; Sinner! man! &c.

Now let us all, yes, every man, Vote for the Slave, for now we can; Break every chain and every yoke, Vote not for Clay nor James K. Polk; Sinner! man! &c.

Come let us go for James G. Birney, Who sells not flesh and blood for money; He is the man you all can see, Who gave his slaves their liberty; Sinner! man! &c.

We hail thee as an honest Man, G.o.d made thee on his n.o.blest plan; To stand for freedom in that hour, To thrust a blow at Slavery's power; Sinner! man! &c.

A VISION.[4]

Words by Crary. Music by G.W.C.

[Footnote 4: Scene in the nether world--purporting to be a conversation between the departed ghost of a Southern slaveholding clergyman, and the devil!]

[Music]

At dead of night, when others sleep, Near h.e.l.l I took my station; And from that dungeon, dark and deep, O'erheard this conversation: "Hail, Prince of Darkness, ever hail, Adored by each infernal, I come among your gang to wail, And taste of death eternal."

"Where are you from?" the fiend demands, "What makes you look so frantic?

Are you from Carolina's strand, Just west of the Atlantic?

Are you that man of blood and birth, Devoid of human feeling?

The wretch I saw, when last on earth, In human cattle dealing?

"Whose soul, with blood and rapine stain'd, With deeds of crime to dark it; Who drove G.o.d's image, starved and chained, To sell like beasts in market?

Who tore the infant from the breast, That you might sell its mother?

Whose craving mind could never rest, Till you had sold a brother?

"Who gave the sacrament to those Whose chains and handcuffs rattle?

Whose backs soon after felt the blows, More heavy than thy cattle?"

"I'm from the South," the ghost replies, "And I was there a teacher; Saw men in chains, with laughing eyes: I was a Southern Preacher!

"In ta.s.sled pulpits, gay and fine, I strove to please the tyrants, To prove that slavery is divine, And what the Scripture warrants.

And when I saw the horrid sight, Of slaves by tortures dying, And told their masters all was right, I knew that I was lying.

"I knew all this, and who can doubt, I felt a sad misgiving?

But still, I knew, if I spoke out, That I should lose my living.

They made me fat, they paid me well, To preach down abolition, I slept--I died--I woke in h.e.l.l, How altered my condition!

"I now am in a sea of fire, Whose fury ever rages; I am a slave, and can't get free, Through everlasting ages.

Yes! when the sun and moon shall fade, And fire the rocks dissever, I must sink down beneath the shade, And feel G.o.d's wrath for ever."

Our Ghost stood trembling all the while-- He saw the scene transpiring; With soul aghast and visage sad, All hope was now retiring.

The Demon cried, on vengeance bent, "I say, in haste, retire!

And you shall have a negro sent To attend and punch the fire."