Northward it hath this sense alone, ""T is shame to see such painted sticks "We forefathers to such a rout! "No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain The hem of thy white vesture. "I feel the soul in me draw near Far in the east I see upleap The streaks of first forewarning, "Child of our travail and our woe, I hear great steps, that through the shade And voices call like that which bade I looked, no form mine eyes could find, And through my window-chinks the wind Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON. Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or with ease Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these! I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest; And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame, 'Tis but my Bay-State dialect, our fathers spake the same! Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of to-day! Are we pledged to craven silence? O fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind, That makes us cringe and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast! Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first; The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God! We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more, To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's core; Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. He's true to God who's true to man; done, wherever wrong is To the humblest and the weakest, neath the all-behold ing sun, That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea. Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye will, From soul to soul o'er all the world, leaps one electric thrill. Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart, With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart: When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay-State's iron shore, The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more. Out from the land of bondage 't is decreed our slaves shall go, And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pharaoh ; If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore, Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore. 'T is ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin; But if before his duty man with listless spirit stands, V TO THE DANDELION. DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; "T is the spring's largess, which she scatters now Though most hearts never understand Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap,- and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, With news from heaven, which he could bring When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam And with a child's undoubting wisdom look THE GHOST-SEER. YE who, passing graves by night, Lest a spirit should arise, Cold and white, to freeze your eyes, Some weak phantom, which your doubt Shapes upon the dark without From the dark within, a guess In your Where ye sell your God-given lives |