The American Union Speaker Part 32

Hark! He answers,--wild tornadoes, Strewing yonder sea with wrecks, Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, Are the voice with which He speaks.

He, foreseeing what vexations Afric's sons should undergo, Fixed their tyrants' habitation Where his whirlwinds answer--No.

By our blood in Afric wasted, Ere our necks received the chain; By the miseries that we tasted, Crossing in your barks the main; By our suffering since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart; All, sustained by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart.

Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger Than the color of our kind.

Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours.

W. Cowper.

CLx.x.xVI.

LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

Toll for the brave! the brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave, fast by their native sh.o.r.e!

Eight hundred of the brave, whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel, and laid her on her side.

A laud-breeze shook the shrouds, and she was overset; Down went the Royal George, with all her crew complete!

Toll for the brave! Brave Kempenfelt is gone; His last sea-fight is fought his work of glory done.

It was not in the battle; no tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak; she ran upon no rock.

His sword was in its sheath, his fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went down, with twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up, once dreaded by our foes, And mingle with our cup the tear that England owes!

Her timbers yet are sound, and she may float again, Full charged with England's thunder, and plow the distant main.

But Kempenfelt is gone, his victories are o'er; And he and his eight hundred shall plow the waves no more.

W. Cowper.

Cx.x.xVII.

SLAVERY.

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more.

My ear is pained, My soul is sick, with every day's report Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled.

There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; It does not feel for man; the natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colored like his own; and having power To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause, Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And worse than all, and most to be deplored, As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.

Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man?

I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews, bought and sold, has ever earned.

No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price, I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.

We have no slaves at home--then why abroad?

And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emanc.i.p.ate and loosed.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

That's n.o.ble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, And let it circulate through every vein Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

W. Cowper.

CLx.x.xVIII.

THE SEMINOLE'S REPLY.

Blaze with your serried columns!

I will not bend the knee!

The shackles ne'er again shall bind The arm which now is free.

I've mailed it with the thunder, When the tempest muttered low; And where it falls, ye well may dread The lightning of its blow!

I've scared ye in the city, I've scalped ye on the plain; Go, count your chosen, where they fell Beneath my leaden rain!

I scorn your proffered treaty!

The pale-face I defy!

Revenge is stamped upon my spear, And blood my battle-cry!

Ye've trailed me through the forest, Ye've tracked me o'er the stream; And struggling through the everglade, Your bristling bayonets gleam; But I stand as should the warrior, With his rifle and his spear;-- The scalp of vengeance still is red, And warns ye,--Come not here!

I loathe ye in my bosom, I scorn ye with my eye, And I'll taunt ye with my latest breath, And fight ye till I die!

I never will ask ye quarter, And I never will be your slave; But I'll swim the sea of slaughter, Till I sink beneath the wave!

G. W. Patten.

CLx.x.xIX.

THE THREE BEATS.

Roll--roll!--How gladly swell the distant notes From where, on high, yon starry pennon floats!

Roll--roll!--On, gorgeously they come, With plumes low-stooping, on their winding way, With lances gleaming in the sun's bright ray:-- "What do ye here, my merry comrades,--say?"-- "We beat the gathering drum; 'T is this which gives to mirth a lighter tone, To the young soldier's cheek a deeper glow, When stretched upon his gra.s.sy couch, alone, It steals upon his ear,--this martial call Prompts him to dreams of gorgeous war, with all

"Its pageantry and show!"

Roll--roll!--"What is it that ye beat?"

"We sound the charge!--On with the courser fleet!-- Where 'mid the columns, red war's eagles fly, We swear to do or die!-- 'T is this which feeds the fires of Fame with breath, Which steels the soldier's heart to deeds of death; And when his hand, Fatigued with slaughter, pauses o'er the slain, 'T is this which prompts him madly once again To seize the b.l.o.o.d.y brand!"

Roll--roll!--"Brothers, what do ye here, Slowly and sadly as ye pa.s.s along, With your dull march and low funereal song?"

"Comrade! we bear a bier!

I saw him fall!

And, as he lay beneath his steed, one thought, (Strange how the mind such fancy should have wrought!) That, had he died beneath his native skies, Perchance some gentle bride had closed his eyes And wept beside his pall!"

G. W. Patten.

CXC.

THE BATTLE OF IVRY.

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!

And glory to our sovereign liege, King Henry of Navarre!

Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance, Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vales, O pleasant land of France!

And thou, Roch.e.l.le, our own Roch.e.l.le, proud city of the waters, Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters; As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.

Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war!

Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre!

O! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day, We saw the army of the League draw out in long array; With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry and Egmont's Flemish spears!

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land!