There came at last a little cloud,
Scarce larger than the human hand, Spreading and swelling till it broke
In showers on all the herbless land;
And hearts were glad, and shouts went up,
And praise to Israel's mighty God,
As the sear hills grew bright with flowers,
And verdure clothed the valley sod,
Even so our eyes have waited long ;
But now a little cloud appears,
Spreading and swelling as it glides
Onward into the coming years.
Bright cloud of Liberty! full soon,
Far stretching from the ocean strand, Thy glorious folds shall spread abroad, Encircling our beloved land.
WRITTEN WHILE IN PRISON FOR DENOUNCING THE
DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE.
HIGH walls and huge the body may confine,
And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,
But scorns the immortal mind such base control
And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways
No chains can bind it and no cell enclose.
Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole,
And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes.
It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to val
It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers;
It visits home to hear the fireside tale
And in sweet converse pass the joyous hours;
'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,
And in its watches wearies every star.
FROM "THE TIMEPIECE": "THE TASK," BOOK 11.
O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick, with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled
There is no flesh in man's obdúrate heart;
It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax,
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colored like his own, and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
O, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No; dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home. Then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord :
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
UP from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble and rumble and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
With Sheridan twenty miles away.
But there is a road from Winchester town,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes A good, broad highway, leading down ;
And there, through the flash of the morning light,
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terri- A steed as black as the steeds of night
His truth is marching on.
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away with the utmost speed;
but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred Hills rose and fell, circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth;
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal ;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
Were beating, like prisoners assaulting their
walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full
With Sheridan only ten miles away
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind,
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eyes full of fire;
But, lo! he is nearing his heart's desire,
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done, what to do,
a glance told
Flashed with a purpose grand,
Long ere the sharp command
Of the fierce rolling drum
Told them their time had come,
Told them what work was sent
For the black regiment.
"Now," the flag-sergeant cried,
"Though death and hell betide,
Let the whole nation see
If we are fit to be
Free in this land; or bound
Down, like the whining hound,
Bound with red stripes of pain
In our cold chains again!"
O, what a shout there went
From the black regiment!
"Freedom!" their battle-cry,
"Freedom! or leave to die!"
Ah and they meant the word,
Not as with us 't is heard,
Not a mere party shout;
They gave their spirits out,
Trusted the end to God,
And on the gory sod
Rolled in triumphant blood.
Glad to strike one free blow,
Whether for weal or woe;
Glad to breathe one free breath,
Though on the lips of death;
Praying, alas! in vain!-
That they might fall again,
So they could once more see
That burst to liberty!
This was what "freedom" lent
To the black regiment.
Hundreds on hundreds fell; But they are resting well; Scourges and shackles strong Never shall do them wrong.
None sang of Love more nobly; few as well;
Of Friendship none with pathos as profound;
Of Duty sternliest-proved when myrtle-crowned;
Of English grove and rivulet, mead and dell:
Great Arthur's Legend he alone dared tell;
Milton and Dryden feared to tread that ground;
For him alone o'er Camelot's faery bound
The horns of Elfland' blew their magic spell.
Since Shakespeare and since Wordsworth none hath sung
So well his England's greatness; none hath given
Reproof more fearless or advice more sage:
None inlier taught how near to earth is Heaven;
With what vast concords Nature's harp is strung;
How base false pride;-faction's fanatic rage.
From XIX Century Magazine, xxxii: 842
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