Their brilliant names are shrined in story;
But you, (a shame to them and me,)
Who crush the black man's liberty,
Have done dishonor to their glory.
My heart the man disdains,
Who freedom's cause maintains,
But yet doth hold, for lust of gold,
His fellow-man in chains.
"My children dwell in every nation,
I hear their voice where'er they call;
I heed not color, rank, or station;
Give me the heart, and that is all.
He, who has blackness on his skin,
Or mean debasement in his birth,
Shall he not freely walk the earth,
If truth and honor dwell within?
Then like your fathers be,
And let the slave go free,
And like a band of brothers stand
All one in liberty."
[The Cocheco is a small, but beautiful river, which flows through a portion of the county of Strafford, in N. H. The scenery along its borders is in many places pleasant and romantic; and it is the locality of some of the descriptions in the poems on American Cottage Life. It empties into the Piscataqua.]
'Tis not that the waves of Cocheco
Are purer or brighter of glow,
Or brighter the shrubs and the flowrets,
O'er the waves of Cocheco that blow.
"T is not, that the sumac, which blushes,
As it bathes in its turbulent tide,
Or the song of the bird in its rushes,
Are better than thousands beside.
"T is not that the meadows are greener,
Or the oak trees more towering and hoar,
Or the canopied heavens serener,
Than you I've witnessed an hundred times o'er.
"T is this, that so gladdens Cocheco,
It shone on the times that have fled,
And the trees to be sure are the brightest,
That full often have waved o'er my head.
"T is this, that the days of my childhood
Have played 'mong its elms and its vines,
And remembrance can count every wildwood,
And murmuring haunt where it shines.
'Tis this, that the waves of Cocheco
Still flow for the friends that are near,
"T is this, that so makes its recesses,
Its shades, and its roses so dear.
[Founded on certain painful events, unnecessary now to be repeated, which occurred some years since, in a family living in the neighborhood of the Suncook river, in N. H.]
YES, Edward, once I thought thee true,
And oh, too long did I believe thee;
But now my faith I dearly rue,
And wail, that e'er thou couldst deceive me.
And couldst thou wring the bosom so,
That lived, exulted to caress thee?
Oh, couldst thou rend this heart with woe,
When every throb arose to bless thee?
Time was, when thou couldst call me fair,
And vow your love was mine forever;
But oh, those words were empty air,
Though strong to break the heart, deceiver!
Then fare thee well, since thou wilt go,
And where thou canst, thy pleasures borrow;
For me, though grief is mine, and woe,
No pangs shall goad my life to-morrow.
And if in death thine eyes behold me,
And watch thy Mary's pallid clay,
Think then of all thy lips have told me,
Think then, they flattered to betray.
Thus Mary's voice her anguish spoke,
When shifting clouds on high were driven,
When screamed the night-bird from the oak,
And shone the troubled stars of Heaven.
And from the cliff o'er Suncook's wave,
That round its craggy base was breaking,
She downward sought her watery grave,
And slept the sleep, that knows no waking.
SWEET HARP OF MY COUNTRY.
SWEET harp of my country! why hears not thy grot, Through its bright hollow chambers, thy minstrelsy swelling?
Have thy chords their seducing enchantment forgot?
Have music and glory forsaken thy dwelling?
Sweet harp of my country! how many long days
Of silence, affliction, and sleep must we number,
Ere the light of thy song shall console with its blaze,
And thy chords shall forever escape from their slumber?
Oh, soon may the wreaths, all unsullied and bright,
Grow verdantly round thee with splendor unbroken,
And thy halls utter music and spells of delight,
With a magic too holy and high to be spoken.
Oh, soon may some hand, more befitting than mine
With a glow that is worthy rush skillfully o'er thee,
And to all the dear wildness and sweetness, that 's thine,
To honor, to freedom, and virtue restore thee.
DOMESTIC AND RELIGIOUS OFFERING.
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