The hands that have done the wrong To right the wronged are strong, And the voice of a nation saith "Enough of the war of swords, Enough of the lying words And shame of a broken faith!" The hills that have watched afar The valleys ablaze with war Shall look on the tasselled corn; And the dust of the grinded grain, Instead of the blood of the slain, Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn! The Ute and the wandering Crow Shall know as the white men know, And fare as the white men fare; The pale and the red shall be brothers, One's rights shall be as another's, Home, School, and House of Prayer! O mountains that climb to snow, O river winding below, Through meadows by war once trod, O wild, waste lands that await The harvest exceeding great, Break forth into praise of God! 1887. NOTES Note 1, page 18. The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, during his confinement in France. "Toussaint!--thou most unhappy man of men Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough Within thy hearing, or thou liest now Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den; O miserable chieftain!--where and when Wilt thou find patience?--Yet, die not, do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow; Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,-- There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies. Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind." Note 2, page 67. The Northern author of the Congressional rule against receiving petitions of the people on the subject of Slavery. Note 3, page 88. There was at the time when this poem was written an Association in Liberty County, Georgia, for the religious instruction of negroes. One of their annual reports contains an address by the Rev. Josiah Spry Law, in which the following passage occurs: "There is a growing interest in this community in the religious instruction of negroes. There is a conviction that religious instruction promotes the quiet and order of the people, and the pecuniary interest of the owners." Note 4, page 117. The book-establishment of the Free-Will Baptists in Dover was refused the act of incorporation by the New Hampshire Legislature, for the reason that the newspaper organ of that sect and its leading preachers favored abolition. Note 5, page 118. The senatorial editor of the Belknap Gazette all along manifested a peculiar horror of "niggers" and "nigger parties." Note 6, page 118. The justice before whom Elder Storrs was brought for preaching abolition on a writ drawn by Hon. M. N., Jr., of Pittsfield. The sheriff served the writ while the elder was praying. Note 7, page 118. The academy at Canaan, N. H., received one or two colored scholars, and was in consequence dragged off into a swamp by Democratic teams.