For, as that saved of bird and beast So has the seed of these increased Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats; Of ice the northern voyager meets And whatsoe'er can stay in it I offer to all bores this perch, Salt of the earth! in what queer Guys My wonder, then, was not unmixed I saw its trembling arms inclose Whose doublet plain and plainer hose Now even such men as Nature forms Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms, Your penitent spirits are no jokes, Who knows, thought I, but he has come, "I come from Plymouth, deadly bored "We had some toughness in our grain, "He had stiff knees, the Puritan, That were not good at bending; The homespun dignity of man He thought was worth defending; He did not, with his pinchbeck ore, "These loud ancestral boasts of yours, Such stalwart men as these are." "Good Sir," I said, "you seem much stirred; The sacred compromises "Now God confound the dastard word! My gall thereat arises: Northward it hath this sense alone, That you, your conscience blinding, Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, When slavery feels like grinding. ""Tis shame to see such painted sticks "We forefathers to such a rout!- Then thrust it slowly back again, And said, with reverent gesture, "No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain The hem of thy white vesture. "I feel the soul in me draw near The streaks of first forewarning, "Child of our travail and our woe, I hear great steps, that through the shade And voices call like that which bade I looked, no form mine eyes could find, Thought I, My neighbour Buckingham Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON. 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, |