Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete: Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
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Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete: Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
O brave men and fair women!
Ill comes of hate and scorning
Shall the dark faces only
Be turned to mourning?--
Make Time your sole avenger,
All-healing, all-redressing;
Meet Fate half-way, and make it
A joy and blessing!
1869.
THE EMANCIPATION GROUP.
Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate
of the Freedman's Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington.
The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a
slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in
gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The group was designed by Thomas Ball,
and was unveiled December 9, 1879. These verses were written for the
occasion.
AMIDST thy sacred effigies
Of old renown give place,
O city, Freedom-loved! to his
Whose hand unchained a race.
Take the worn frame, that rested not
Save in a martyr's grave;
The care-lined face, that none forgot,
Bent to the kneeling slave.
Let man be free! The mighty word
He spake was not his own;
An impulse from the Highest stirred
These chiselled lips alone.
The cloudy sign, the fiery guide,
Along his pathway ran,
And Nature, through his voice, denied
The ownership of man.
We rest in peace where these sad eyes
Saw peril, strife, and pain;
His was the nation's sacrifice,
And ours the priceless gain.
O symbol of God's will on earth
As it is done above!
Bear witness to the cost and worth
Of justice and of love.
Stand in thy place and testify
To coming ages long,
That truth is stronger than a lie,
And righteousness than wrong.
THE JUBILEE SINGERS.
A number of students of Fisk University, under the direction of one of
the officers, gave a series of concerts in the Northern States, for the
purpose of establishing the college on a firmer financial foundation.
Their hymns and songs, mostly in a minor key, touched the hearts of the
people, and were received as peculiarly expressive of a race delivered
from bondage.
VOICE of a people suffering long,
The pathos of their mournful song,
The sorrow of their night of wrong!
Their cry like that which Israel gave,
A prayer for one to guide and save,
Like Moses by the Red Sea's wave!
The stern accord her timbrel lent
To Miriam's note of triumph sent
O'er Egypt's sunken armament!
The tramp that startled camp and town,
And shook the walls of slavery down,
The spectral march of old John Brown!
The storm that swept through battle-days,
The triumph after long delays,
The bondmen giving God the praise!
Voice of a ransomed race, sing on
Till Freedom's every right is won,
And slavery's every wrong undone
1880.
GARRISON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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