Back to slavery's gloomy night.

Back where brutal men may trample,
On her honor and her fame;
And unto her lips so dusky,
Press the cup of woe and shame.

There is blood upon your city,
Dark and dismal is the stain;
And your hands would fail to cleanse it,
Though Lake Erie ye should drain.

There's a curse upon your Union,
Fearful sounds are in the air;
As if thunderbolts were framing,
Answers to the bondsman's prayer.

Ye may offer human victims,
Like the heathen priests of old;
And may barter manly honor
For the Union and for gold.

But ye can not stay the whirlwind,
When the storm begins to break;
And our God doth rise in judgment,
For the poor and needy's sake.

And, your sin-cursed, guilty Union,
Shall be shaken to its base,
Till ye learn that simple justice,
Is the right of every race.

Mrs. Harper took the deepest interest in the war, and looked with
extreme anxiety for the results; and she never lost an opportunity to
write, speak, or serve the cause in any way that she thought would best
promote the freedom of the slave. On the proclamation of General
Fremont, the passages from her pen are worthy to be long remembered:

"Well, what think you of the war? To me one of the most
interesting features is Fremont's Proclamation freeing the
slaves of the rebels. Is there no ray of hope in that? I should
not wonder if Edward M. Davis breathed that into his ear. His
proclamation looks like real earnestness; no mincing the matter
with the rebels. Death to the traitors and confiscation of their
slaves is no child's play. I hope that the boldness of his stand
will inspire others to look the real cause of the war in the
face and inspire the government with uncompromising earnestness
to remove the festering curse. And yet I am not uneasy about the
result of this war. We may look upon it as God's controversy
with the nation; His arising to plead by fire and blood the
cause of His poor and needy people. Some time since
Breckinridge, in writing to Sumner, asks, if I rightly remember,
What is the fate of a few negroes to me or mine? Bound up in one
great bundle of humanity our fates seem linked together, our
destiny entwined with theirs, and our rights are interwoven
together."

Finally when the long-looked-for Emancipation Proclamation came,
alt