Slavery, the earthborn Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood,

Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood,

Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day,

Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;

Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play?

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched

crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be

just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands

aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

Count me o'er Earth's chosen heroes, they were souls that stood alone

While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,

Stood serene and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not

back,

And these mounts of anguish number how each generation

learned

One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned

Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.

For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots

burn,

While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves; Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime : Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?

Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth rock sublime?

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,

Hoarding it in' mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee

The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,

Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires; Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste

to slay,

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pil

grims be,

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted

key.

December, 11, 1845.

ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE SLAVES

NEAR WASHINGTON.

BY THE SAME.

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

That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at

rest,

While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast!

Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties

first;

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed;
Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod,
Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to
God!

We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more,

To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's

Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.

He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is

done,

To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding

sun,

That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most

base,

Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their

race.

God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free
With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea.
Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye will,
From soul to soul, o'er all the world, leaps one electric thrill.

Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart,

With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart : When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay State's iron shore, The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more.

Out from the land of bondage 't is decreed our slaves shall go,
And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pharaoh ;

If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore,
Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore.

'Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin; But if man before his duty with a listless spirit stands, Ere long the Great Avenger takes the work from out his hands.

July 19, 1845.

THE BUBBLE CHASE.

BY S. G. GOODRICH.

"What phantoms we are, what phantoms we pursue!"

'T was morn, and wending on its way,
Beside my path a stream was playing;
And down its banks, in humor gay,

A thoughtless, hoyden boy was straying.

Light as the breeze they onward flew,
That joyous youth and laughing tide,
And seemed each other's course to woo,

For long they bounded side by side.
And now the dimpling water stayed,
And glassed its ripples in a nook;
And on its breast a bubble played,
Which won the boy's admiring look.
He bent him o'er the river's brim,

And on the radiant vision gazed,
For lovelier still it seemed to him,
That in its breast his image blazed.
With beating heart and trembling finger,
He stooped the wondrous gem to clasp;
But spell-bound, seemed a while to linger,
Ere yet he made th' adventurous grasp.
And still a while the glittering toy,
Coquettish seemed to shun the snare;
And then, more eager grew the boy,
And followed with impetuous air.
Round and around, with heedful eyes,
He chased it o'er the wavy river;

He marked his time and seized his prize —
But in his hand it burst forever!

Upon the river's marge he sate,

The tears adown his young cheek gushing;

And long-his heart disconsolate

He heeded not the river's rushing.

But tears will cease - and now the boy Once more looked forth upon the stream: 'T was morning still- and lo! a toy, Bright as the lost one, in the beam!

He rose-pursued — the bubble caught;

It burst he sighed - then others chased; And as I parted, still he sought

New bubbles in their downward haste.