Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

From morn till night he followed their flight,
O'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roof of Caffre huts,

And the ocean rose to view.

At night he heard the lion roar,

And the hyena scream,

And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream;

And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.

The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;

And the blast of the desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.

He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;

For death had illumined the land oí sleep,

And his lifeless body lay

A worn-out fetter, that the soul

Had broken and thrown away.

LONGFELLOW.

THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.*

A CHRISTIAN! going, gone!

Who bids for God's own image?-for His grace
Which that poor victim of the market-place
Hath in her suffering won?

My God! can such things be!

Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done
Unto Thy weaker and Thy humblest one,
Is even done to Thee?

In that sad victim, then,

Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand-
Once more the jest-word of a mocking hand,
Bound, sold, and scourged again!

A Christian up for sale!

Wet with her blood your whips-o'ertask her frame, Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame, Her patience shall not fail!

A heathen hand might deal

Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years,
But her low broken prayer and nightly tears,
Ye neither heed nor feel.

Con well thy lesson o'er,

Thou prudent teacher-tell the toiling slave,

* In a late publication of L. F. Tasistro, "Random Shots and Southern Breezes," is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the stand as "a good Christian."

No dangerous tale of Him who came to save
The outcast and the poor.

But wisely shut the ray

Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart,
And to her darkened mind alone impart
One stern command-" OBEY."

So shalt thou deftly raise

The market price of human flesh; and while
On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile,
Thy church shall praise.

Grave reverend men shall tell

From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, While in that vile South Sodom, first and best, Thy poor disciples sell!

Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall,

Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels,
While turning to the sacred Kebla, feels
His fetters break and fall.

Cheers for the turbaned Bey

Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn
The dark slave dungeons open, and hath borne
Their inmates into day.

But our poor slave in vain

Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes-
Its rites will only swell his market-price,

And rivet on his chain.

God of all right! how long

Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand,
Lifting in prayer to Thee, the bloody hand
And haughty brow of wrong?

Oh, from the fields of cane,

From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cellFrom the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain,—

Hoarse, horrible, and strong

Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry,
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,

HOW LONG-OH, GOD, HOW LONG!

WHITTIER.

OUR COUNTRYMEN IN CHAINS.

OUR fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves-in a land of light and law!
Slaves-crouching on the very plains

Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood-

A wail where Camden's martyrs fell

By every shrine of patriot blood,

From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well!

By storied hill and hallowed grot,
By mossy wood and marshy glen,
Whence rang of old the rifle-shot,
And hurrying shout of Marion's men.

The groan of breaking hearts is there-
The falling lash-the fetter's clank!
Slaves-SLAVES are breathing in that air
Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank!

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 Belgium feel, and gallant France,

By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall,

« AnteriorContinuar »