Man was not made for forms, but forms for man; And there are times when Law itself must bend To that clear spirit, that hath still outran The speed of human justice. In the end, Potentates, not Humanity, must fall. Water will find its level; fire will burn; The winds must blow around this earthly ball; This earthly ball by day and night must turn. Freedom is typed in every element. Man _must_ be free! If not _through_ law, why then _Above_ the law! until its force be spent, And justice brings a better. When, O, when, Father of Light! shall the great reckoning come, To lift the weak, and strike the oppressor dumb? C.P. CRANCH. ON THE SURRENDER OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE. Look on who will in apathy, and stifle, they who _can_, The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up, with interest or with ease, Consent to hear, with quiet pulse, of loathsome deeds like these. I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk, that will not let me rest; And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame, 'Tis but my Bay State dialect--our fathers spake the same. Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone To those who won _our_ liberty! the heroes dead and gone! While we look coldly on and see law-shielded ruffians slay The men who fain would win their _own_! the heroes of _to-day_! Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind! That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast! We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more, To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's core. Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so; but then Before Man made us _citizens_, great Nature made us _men_! Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first, The traitor to _Humanity_ is the traitor most accurst. _Man_ is more than _Constitutions_. Better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to _Church_ and _State_, while we are doubly false to God! JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest hell? Shall freemen lock the indignant thought? Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell? Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb? What! shall we guard our neighbor still. While woman shrieks beneath his rod, And while he tramples down, at will, The image of a common God? Shall watch and ward be round him set Of Northern nerve and bayonet?