RANTOUL. Through him we hoped to speak the word Which dropped from Hampden's dying hand. For he had sat at Sidney's feet, And walked with Pym and Vane apart; He knew the paths the worthies held, No wild enthusiast of the right, Self-poised and clear, he showed alway His steps were slow, yet forward still He pressed where others paused or failed; The calm star clomb with constant will, The restless meteor flashed and paled! Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew And owned the higher ends of Law; Still rose majestic on his view The awful Shape the schoolman saw. Her home the heart of God; her voice The stars, through all their spheres, rejoice, We saw his great powers misapplied And right the wronged, and free the thrall. 87 a Now, looking o'er the frozen North And give her faith the life of fact, To break her party bonds of shame, We sweep the land from hill to strand, There, where his breezy hills of home "Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power Was lent to Party over-long, Heard the still whisper at the hour He set his foot on Party wrong? "The human life that closed so well 'Mightier than living voice his grave "Men of the North! your weak regret BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE. N.ORR.C. BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE. OHN BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE spake on his dying day : "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, With her children from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!" 89 John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die; And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh. Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child! The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart; So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in array; In vain her trampling squadrons knead the winter snow with clay. She may strike the pouncing eagle, but she dares not harm the dove; And every gate she bars to Hate shall open wide to Love! I THE RENDITION. HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, I saw an earnest look beseech, And rather by that look than speech My neighbor told me all. And, as I thought of Liberty Marched handcuffed down that sworded street, The solid earth beneath my feet Reeled fluid as the sea. LINES I felt a sense of bitter loss, Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, A serpent stretched across. All love of home, all pride of place, Down on my native hills of June, And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, The blasphemy of wrong. "O Mother, from thy memories proud, "Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, 6th mo., 1854. 91 LINES, ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT. I SAID I stood upon thy grave, My Mother State, when last the moon |