I 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. I felt a sense of bitter loss,-- Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, And loathing fear, as if my path A serpent stretched across. All love of home, all pride of place, All generous confidence and trust, Sank smothering in that deep disgust And anguish of disgrace. Down on my native hills of June, And home's green quiet, hiding all, Fell sudden darkness like the fall Of midnight upon noon. And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God The blasphemy of wrong. "O Mother, from thy memories proud, Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, Lend this dead air a breeze of health, And smite with stars this cloud. "Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, Rise awful in thy strength," I said; Ah me! I spake but to the dead; I stood upon her grave! 6th mo., 1854. ARISEN AT LAST. 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 Of blossoms clomb the skies of June. And, scattering ashes on my head, I wore, undreaming of relief, The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. Again that moon of blossoms shines On leaf and flower and folded wing, And thou hast risen with the spring! Once more thy strong maternal arms Are round about thy children flung,-- A lioness that guards her young! No threat is on thy closed lips, But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from its light. Southward the baffled robber's track Henceforth runs only; hereaway, The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, His first low howl shall downward draw The thunder of thy righteous law. Not mindless of thy trade and gain, But, acting on the wiser plan, Thou'rt grown conservative of man. So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, Dream-painted on the sightless eyes Of him who sang of Paradise,-- The vision of a Christian man, In virtue, as in stature great Embodied in a Christian State. And thou, amidst thy sisterhood Forbearing long, yet standing fast, Shalt win their grateful thanks at last; When North and South shall strive no more, And all their feuds and fears be lost In Freedom's holy Pentecost. 6th mo., 1855. THE HASCHISH.