Read Ebook: Anti-Slavery Poems 1. Part 1 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by Whittier John Greenleaf

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In the sunny Guadaloupe A dark-hulled vessel lay, With a crew who noted never The nightfall or the day. The blossom of the orange Was white by every stream, And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird Were in the warns sunbeam.

And the sky was bright as ever, And the moonlight slept as well, On the palm-trees by the hillside, And the streamlet of the dell: And the glances of the Creole Were still as archly deep, And her smiles as full as ever Of passion and of sleep.

But vain were bird and blossom, The green earth and the sky, And the smile of human faces, To the slaver's darkened eye; At the breaking of the morning, At the star-lit evening time, O'er a world of light and beauty Fell the blackness of his crime. 1834.

EXPOSTULATION.

Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of delegates from all the anti- slavery organizations in New England, held at Boston in May, 1834, was chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of New England. Toward the close of the address occurred the passage which suggested these lines. "The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States--the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king--cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age?" --Dr. Follen's Address.

"Genius of America!--Spirit of our free institutions!--where art thou? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! son of the morning,--how art thou fallen from Heaven! Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming! The kings of the earth cry out to thee, Aha! Aha! Art thou become like unto us?"--Speech of Samuel J. May.

What, ho! our countrymen in chains! The whip on woman's shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with the stains Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! Americans to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold!

Speak! shall their agony of prayer Come thrilling to our hearts in vain? To us whose fathers scorned to bear The paltry menace of a chain; To us, whose boast is loud and long Of holy Liberty and Light; Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong Plead vainly for their plundered Right?

What! shall we send, with lavish breath, Our sympathies across the wave, Where Manhood, on the field of death, Strikes for his freedom or a grave? Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning, And millions hail with pen and tongue Our light on all her altars burning?

Shall every flap of England's flag Proclaim that all around are free, From farthest Ind to each blue crag That beetles o'er the Western Sea? And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, When Freedom's fire is dim with us, And round our country's altar clings The damning shade of Slavery's curse?

Go, let us ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland's throat; And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line To spare the struggling Suliote; Will not the scorching answer come From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ "Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, Then turn, and ask the like of us!"

Just God! and shall we calmly rest, The Christian's scorn, the heathen's mirth, Content to live the lingering jest And by-word of a mocking Earth? Shall our own glorious land retain That curse which Europe scorns to bear? Shall our own brethren drag the chain Which not even Russia's menials wear?

Up, then, in Freedom's manly part, From graybeard eld to fiery youth, And on the nation's naked heart Scatter the living coals of Truth! Up! while ye slumber, deeper yet The shadow of our fame is growing! Up! while ye pause, our sun may set In blood, around our altars flowing!

Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, The gathered wrath of God and man, Like that which wasted Egypt's earth, When hail and fire above it ran. Hear ye no warnings in the air? Feel ye no earthquake underneath? Up, up! why will ye slumber where The sleeper only wakes in death?

Rise now for Freedom! not in strife Like that your sterner fathers saw, The awful waste of human life, The glory and the guilt of war:' But break the chain, the yoke remove, And smite to earth Oppression's rod, With those mild arms of Truth and Love, Made mighty through the living God!

Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, And leave no traces where it stood; Nor longer let its idol drink His daily cup of human blood; But rear another altar there, To Truth and Love and Mercy given, And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, Shall call an answer down from Heaven! 1834

HYMN.

Written for the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham Street Chapel, New York, held on the 4th of the seventh month, 1834.

O THOU, whose presence went before Our fathers in their weary way, As with Thy chosen moved of yore The fire by night, the cloud by day!

When from each temple of the free, A nation's song ascends to Heaven, Most Holy Father! unto Thee May not our humble prayer be given?

Thy children all, though hue and form Are varied in Thine own good will, With Thy own holy breathings warm, And fashioned in Thine image still.

We thank Thee, Father! hill and plain Around us wave their fruits once more, And clustered vine, and blossomed grain, Are bending round each cottage door.

And peace is here; and hope and love Are round us as a mantle thrown, And unto Thee, supreme above, The knee of prayer is bowed alone.

But oh, for those this day can bring, As unto us, no joyful thrill; For those who, under Freedom's wing, Are bound in Slavery's fetters still:

For those to whom Thy written word Of light and love is never given; For those whose ears have never heard The promise and the hope of heaven!

For broken heart, and clouded mind, Whereon no human mercies fall; Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined, Who, as a Father, pitiest all!

And grant, O Father! that the time Of Earth's deliverance may be near, When every land and tongue and clime The message of Thy love shall hear;

When, smitten as with fire from heaven, The captive's chain shall sink in dust, And to his fettered soul be given The glorious freedom of the just,

THE YANKEE GIRL.

SHE sings by her wheel at that low cottage-door, Which the long evening shadow is stretching before, With a music as sweet as the music which seems Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams!

How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky! And lightly and freely her dark tresses play O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they!

Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-door, The haughty and rich to the humble and poor? 'T is the great Southern planter, the master who waves His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.

"Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin, Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin; Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel, Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel!

"But thou art too lovely and precious a gem To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them; For shame, Ellen, shame, cast thy bondage aside, And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.

"Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong, But where flowers are blossoming all the year long, Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home, And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom!

"Oh, come to my home, where my servants shall all Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call; They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe, And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law."

"Oh, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls-- Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls, With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel, And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel!

"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou halt sold; Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!

"And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours, And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy' flowers; But dearer the blast round our mountains which raves, Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves!

"Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel, With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel; Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!" 1835.

THE HUNTERS OF MEN.

These lines were written when the orators of the American Colonization Society were demanding that the free blacks should be sent to Africa, and opposing Emancipation unless expatriation followed. See the report of the proceedings of the society at its annual meeting in 1834.

HAVE ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men? The lords of our land to this hunting have gone, As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn; Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip! All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match, Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch. So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men!

Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind, Just screening the politic statesman behind; The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer, The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there. And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid, For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on the rein, How blithely she rides to the hunting of men!

Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see, In this "land of the brave and this home of the free." Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to Maine, All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein; Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin! Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey? Will their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when All roughly they ride to the hunting of men?

Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint, Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the saint. The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still, Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill. Haste, alms for our hunters! the hunted once more Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore What right have they here in the home of the white, Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right? Ho! alms for the hunters! or never again Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men!

Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay, When their pride and their glory are melting away? The parson has turned; for, on charge of his own, Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye. Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail, And the head of his steed take the place of the tail. Oh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then, For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men? 1835.

STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.

The "Times" referred to were those evil times of the pro-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, in which a demand was made for the suppression of free speech, lest it should endanger the foundation of commercial society.

Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the soil whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn?

And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver's whip? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak but as our masters please.

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