Warmed into being!

Transformed he saw them passing
Their new life's portal
Almost it seemed the mortal
Put on the immortal.
No more with the beasts of burden,
No more with stone and clod,
But crowned with glory and honor
In the image of God!

There was the human chattel
Its manhood taking;
There, in each dark, bronze statue,
A soul was waking!
The man of many battles,
With tears his eyelids pressing,
Stretched over those dusky foreheads
His one-armed blessing.

And he said: "Who hears can never
Fear for or doubt you;
What shall I tell the children
Up North about you?"
Then ran round a whisper, a murmur,
Some answer devising:
And a little boy stood up: "General,
Tell 'em we're rising!"

O black boy of Atlanta!
But half was spoken
The slave's chain and the master's
Alike are broken.
The one curse of the races
Held both in tether
They are rising,--all are rising,
The black and white together!

O brave men and fair women!
Ill comes of hate and scorning
Shall the dark faces only
Be turned to mourning?--
Make Time your sole avenger,
All-healing, all-redressing;
Meet Fate half-way, and make it
A joy and blessing!

1869.

THE EMANCIPATION GROUP.

Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate
of the Freedman's Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington.
The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a
slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in
gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The group was designed by Thomas Ball,
and was unveiled December 9, 1879. These verses were written for the
occasion.

AMIDST thy sacred effigies
Of old renown give place,
O city, Freedom-loved! to his
Whose hand unchained a race.

Take the worn frame, that rested not
Save in a martyr's grave;
The care-lined face, that none forgot,
Bent to the kneeling slave.

Let man be free! The mighty word
He spake was not his own;
An impulse from the Highest stirred
These chiselled lips alone.

The cloudy sign, the fiery guide,
Along his pathway ran,
And Nature, through his voice, denied
The ownership of man.

We rest in peace where these sad eyes
Saw pe