crime,
Crying of the end of time;
With one heart and with one mouth,
Let the North unto the South
Speak the word befitting both.
"What though Issachar be strong
Ye may load his back with wrong
Overmuch and over long:
"Patience with her cup o'errun,
With her weary thread outspun,
Murmurs that her work is done.
"Make our Union-bond a chain,
Weak as tow in Freedom's strain
Link by link shall snap in twain.
"Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope
Bind the starry cluster up,
Shattered over heaven's blue cope!
"Give us bright though broken rays,
Rather than eternal haze,
Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.
"Take your land of sun and bloom;
Only leave to Freedom room
For her plough, and forge, and loom;
"Take your slavery-blackened vales;
Leave us but our own free gales,
Blowing on our thousand sails.
"Boldly, or with treacherous art,
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart;
Break the Union's mighty heart;
"Work the ruin, if ye will;
Pluck upon your heads an ill
Which shall grow and deepen still.
"With your bondman's right arm bare,
With his heart of black despair,
Stand alone, if stand ye dare!
"Onward with your fell design;
Dig the gulf and draw the line
Fire beneath your feet the mine!
"Deeply, when the wide abyss
Yawns between your land and this,
Shall ye feel your helplessness.
"By the hearth, and in the bed,
Shaken by a look or tread,
Ye shall own a guilty dread.
"And the curse of unpaid toil,
Downward through your generous soil
Like a fire shall burn and spoil.
"Our bleak hills shall bud and blow,
Vines our rocks shall overgrow,
Plenty in our valleys flow;--
"And when vengeance clouds your skies,
Hither shall ye turn your eyes,
As the lost on Paradise!
"We but ask our rocky strand,
Freedom's true and brother band,
Freedom's strong and honest hand;
"Valleys by the slave untrod,
And the Pilgrim's mountain sod,
Blessed of our fathers' God!"
1844.
TO FANEUIL HALL.
Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Massachusetts Freeman" for a
meeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Massachusetts, without
distinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and the
a
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