Anti-Slavery Poems 2.: Part 2 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
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Anti-Slavery Poems 2.: Part 2 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
O kingly mockers! scoffing show
What deeds in Freedom's name we do;
Yet know that every taunt ye throw
Across the waters, goads our slow
Progression towards the right and true.
Not always shall your outraged poor,
Appalled by democratic crime,
Grind as their fathers ground before;
The hour which sees our prison door
Swing wide shall be their triumph time.
On then, my brothers! every blow
Ye deal is felt the wide earth through;
Whatever here uplifts the low
Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe,
Blesses the Old World through the New.
Take heart! The promised hour draws near;
I hear the downward beat of wings,
And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear
"Joy to the people! woe and fear
To new-world tyrants, old-world kings!"
A LETTER.
Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" at
Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result
of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston
Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which
resulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the election
of John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their authorship
was not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They furnish a specimen
of the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in which the
liberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and political
outlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected.
'T is over, Moses! All is lost
I hear the bells a-ringing;
Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host
I hear the Free-Wills singing [4]
We're routed, Moses, horse and foot,
If there be truth in figures,
With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit,
And Hale, and all the "niggers."
Alack! alas! this month or more
We've felt a sad foreboding;
Our very dreams the burden bore
Of central cliques exploding;
Before our eyes a furnace shone,
Where heads of dough were roasting,
And one we took to be your own
The traitor Hale was toasting!
Our Belknap brother [5] heard with awe
The Congo minstrels playing;
At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt [6] saw
The ghost of Storrs a-praying;
And Calroll's woods were sad to see,
With black-winged crows a-darting;
And Black Snout looked on Ossipee,
New-glossed with Day and Martin.
We thought the "Old Man of the Notch"
His face seemed changing wholly--
His lips seemed thick; his nose seemed flat;
His misty hair looked woolly;
And Coos teamsters, shrieking, fled
From the metamorphosed figure.
"Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone Head
Himself is turning nigger!"
The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauled
Seemed turning on its track again,
And like a great swamp-turtle crawled
To Canaan village back again,
Shook off the mud and settled flat
Upon its underpinning;
A nigger on its ridge-pole sat,
From ear to ear a-grinning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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