The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings — John Shaqi
The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings
History
The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings
Antislavery movements -- Songs and music; Slavery -- United States -- Poetry; Songs, English -- United States -- Texts
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky!
And lightly and freely her dark tresses play
O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they!
Who comes in his pride to that low cottage door--
The haughty and rich to the humble and poor?
'Tis the great Southern planter--the master who waves
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.
"Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin,
Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin;
Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel
Too stupid for shame and too vulgar to feel!
"But thou art too lovely and precious a gem
To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them--
For shame, Ellen, shame!--cast thy bondage aside,
And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.
"O, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong,
But where flowers are blossoming all the year long,
Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home,
And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom!
"O, come to my home, where my servants shall all
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call;
They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe,
And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law."
O, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls--
Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls,
With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel,
And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel:
"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold!
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!
"And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours,
And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy flowers;
But, dearer the blast round our mountains which raves,
Than the sweet sunny zephyr which breathes over slaves!
"Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel,
With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel;
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be
In _fetters_ with _them_, than in freedom with _thee!_"
From Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.
JEFFERSON'S DAUGHTER.
"It is asserted, on the authority of an American Newspaper, that the
daughter of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, was
sold at New Orleans for $1,000."--Morning Chronicle.
Can the blood that, at Lexington, poured o'er the plain,
When the sons warred with tyrants their rights to uphold,
Can the tide of Niagara wipe out the stain?
No! Jefferson's child has been bartered for gold!
Do you boast of your freedom? Peace, babblers--be still;
Prate not of the goddess who scarce deigns to hear;
Have ye power to unbind? Are ye wanting in will?
Must the groans of your bondman still torture the ear?
The daughter of Jefferson sold for a slave!
The child of a freeman for dollars and francs!
The roar of applause, when your orators rave,
Is lost in the sound of her chain, as it clanks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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