The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery MeetingsBrown, William Wells
History
The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings
Brown, William Wells
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 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_!”
FLING OUT THE ANTI-SLAVERY FLAG.
AIR--Auld Lang Syne.
Fling out the Anti-slavery flag
On every swelling breeze;
And let its folds wave o’er the land,
And o’er the raging seas,
Till all beneath the standard sheet,
With new allegiance bow;
And pledge themselves to onward bear
The emblem of their vow.
Fling out the Anti-slavery flag,
And let it onward wave
Till it shall float o’er every clime,
And liberate the slave;
Till, like a meteor flashing far,
It bursts with glorious light,
And with its Heaven-born rays dispels
The gloom of sorrow’s night.
Fling out the Anti-slavery flag,
And let it not be furled,
Till like a planet of the skies,
It sweeps around the world.
And when each poor degraded slave,
Is gathered near and far;
O, fix it on the azure arch,
As hope’s eternal star.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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