Oh, Planter of seed in thought and deed has the year of right revolved, And brought the Negro patriot's cause with its problem to be solved? His blood streamed first for the building, and through all the century's years, Our growth of story and fame of glory are mixed with his blood and tears. He lived with men like a soul condemned--derided, defamed, and mute; Debased to the brutal level, and instructed to be a brute. His virtue was shorn of benefit, his industry of reward; His love!--O men, it were mercy to have cut affection's cord; Through the night of his woe, no pity save that of his fellow-slave; For the wage of his priceless labor, the scourging block and the grave! And now, is the tree to blossom? Is the bowl of agony filled? Shall the price be paid and the honor said, and the word of outrage stilled? And we who have toiled for freedom's law, have we sought for freedom's soul? Have we learned at last that human right is not a part but the whole? That nothing is told while the clinging sin remains part unconfessed? That the health of the nation is perilled if one man be oppressed? Has he learned--the slave from the rice-swamps, whose children were sold--has he, With broken chains on his limbs, and the cry in his blood, "I am free!" Has he learned through affliction's teaching what our Crispus Attucks knew-- When Right is stricken, the white and black are counted as one, not two? Has he learned that his century of grief was worth a thousand years In blending his life and blood with ours, and that all his toils and tears Were heaped and poured on him suddenly, to give him a right to stand From the gloom of African forests, in the blaze of the freest land? That his hundred years have earned for him a place in the human van Which others have fought for and thought for since the world of wrong began? For this, shall his vengeance change to love, and his retribution burn, Defending the right, the weak, and the poor, when each shall have his turn; For this, shall he set his woeful past afloat on the stream of night; For this, he forgets as we all forget when darkness turns to light; For this, he forgives as we all forgive when wrong has changed to right. And so, must we come to the learning of Boston's lesson to-day; The moral that Crispus Attucks taught in the old heroic way; God made mankind to be one in blood, as one in spirit and thought; And so great a boon, by a brave man's death, is never dearly bought! JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. This insignificant street riot was the famous "Boston Massacre." It created a great stir, and the victims were buried with military honors on March 8, the bodies being deposited in a single vault. A few days later, Paul Revere engraved and printed a large hand-bill giving a picture of the scene, accompanied by the following lines: UNHAPPY BOSTON