Watch by thy couch and nurse thee? Day by day
Have I not taught thee patiently? and more
Than earthly learning, show'd thee of the way
To win eternal happiness. A better hope
Than that which only look'd to Afric's shore,
To find thy futuré Heaven !”—
"Yes, thou hast done all this,
And much more, lady! Thou hast been to me
A true and tireless friend, and may there be
Laid up for thee a full reward of bliss,
In that bright Heaven of which I've heard thee tell,
Where God and all his holy angels dwell.
"Yet how can I but weep
Whene'er I think upon the mother's eye,
That smiled to meet my glance in days gone by,
And watch'd in tenderness above my sleep,
Now grown all dim with hopeless grief for me,
Who never more may home or parent see.
""T was on a bright sunny morn,
When with glad heart I sprang across the hills,
With my young sister, and beside the rills,
Whose shining waves and clustering flowers were borne,
While at the cabin door my mother stood,
And watch'd our footsteps to the distant wood.
"She never saw us more
For in the dead of night, while deep we slept
Within our uncle's home, the man-thieves crept
With stealthy pace, like tigers, to our door.
And, bursting in, they dragg'd us far away,
A helpless, frighten'd, unresisting prey.
"Ah, lady, now thine eyes
Are wet with tears:-then wonder not I weep,
Within whose waking thoughts, or dreams of sleep,
The memories of such scenes as this arise,
And worse than these, the constant thought of pain,
That I shall never see my home again.
"Three days they drove us on,
A weary, wretched, and despairing band,
Until with swollen limbs we reach'd the strand,
Where 'neath the setting sun the sea-waves shone;
Then gasping in the slave-ship's hold we lay,
And wish'd each groan might bear our lives away.
"Ah, thou canst never know
Of all our sufferings in that loathsome den,
And from the cruel and hard-hearted men,
Who mock'd at all our anguish and our woe;
Until at length thy country's ship came by,
And saved us from our depth of misery.
"Yet still, though not a slave, I am a stranger in a stranger's land,
Far sever'd from my own dear kindred band,
By many a wide-stretch'd plain and rolling wave; And, although even with thee my lot is cast, I cannot lose the memory of the past.
"Then wonder not I weep;
For never can my lost home be forgot;
Nor all the loved ones who have made that spot
The heaven to which e'en yet, amid my sleep,
My hopes are sometimes turn'd-though thou hast taught My waking hours a holier, better thought."
AN APPEAL FOR THE OPPRESSED.
DAUGHTERS of the Pilgrim sires,
Dwellers by their mouldering graves,
Watchers of their altar fires,
Look upon your country's slaves!
Look! 't is woman's streaming eye,
These are woman's fetter'd hands,
That to you so mournfully
Lift sad glance, and iron bands.
Mute, yet strong appeal of woe!
Wakes it not your starting tears?
Though your hearts may never know,
Half the bitter doom of hers.
Scars are on her fetter'd limbs,
Where the savage scourge hath been; But the grief, her eye that dims, Flows for deeper wounds within.
For the children of her love,
For the brothers of her race,
Sisters, like vine branches wove,
In one early dwelling place.
For the parent forms, that hung
Fondly o'er her infant sleep,
And for him, to whom she clung
With affection, true and deep-
By her sad forsaken hearth,
"T is for these she wildly grieves ! Now all scatter'd o'er the earth,
Like the wind-strewn autumn leaves!
E'en her babes, so dear, so young,
And so treasured in her heart,
That the chords which round them clung
Seem'd its life, its dearest part-
These, ev'n these, were torn away! These, that when all else were gone, Cheer'd her heart with one bright ray, That still bade its pulse beat on.
Then, to still her frantic woe,
The inhuman scourge was tried, Till the tears that ceased to flow, Were with redder drops supplied!
And can you behold unmoved,
All the crushing weight of grief,
That her aching heart has proved,
Seeking not to yield relief?
Are not woman's pulses warm,
Beating in this anguish'd breast?
Is it not a sister's form,
On whose limbs these fetters rest?
Oh then, save her from a doom,
Worse than all that ye may bear;
Let her pass not to the tomb
'Midst her bondage and despair.
THE SYLVAN GRAVE.
LAY me not, when I die, in the place of the dead,
With the dwellings of men round my resting place spread,
But amidst the still forest, unseen and alone,
Where the waters go by with a murmuring tone;
Where the wild bird above me may wave its dark wing,
And the flowers I have loved from my ashes may spring;
Where affection's own blossom may lift its blue eye,
With an eloquent glance from the place where I lie.
Let the rose and the woodbine be there, to enwreath
A bright chaplet of bloom for the pale brow of death;
And the clover's red blossom be seen, that the hum
Of the honey-bee's wing, may for requiem come:
And when those I have loved, 'midst the changes of earth,
The clouds of its sorrow, its sunshine of mirth,
Shall visit the spot where my cold relics lie,
And gaze on its flowers with a tear-moisten'd eye-
Let them think that my spirit still sometimes is there,
My breath the light zephyr that twines in their hair,
And these flowers, in their fragrance, a memory be,
To tell them thus sweet was their friendship to me.
EARTH! thou art lovely, when the sinking sun
Hath bathed the clouds in his departing flush,
And, with the moon-lit evening, hath begun
The voiceless, and yet spirit-calming hush,
That thrills around the heart, till tear-drops rush,
Unbidden and uncall'd for, to the eye;
When, save the music of the fountain's gush,
Or the far wailing of the night-bird's cry,
Unbroken silence hangs o'er earth, and wave, and sky.
But now the majesty of midnight storm
Is gathering, in its grandeur, o'er the sky;
The deep black clouds in mustering squadrons form,
And the low, fitful blast, that passes by,
Hath a strange fearful thrilling-like the sigh
Of a sick slumberer; even that hath died,
And in their quiet sleep the waters lie,
As though the winds ne'er curl'd them in its pride, Or shook the still bent leaves that hang above the tide.
How steadily that ebon mass moves on!
Stretching across the sky in one dark line,
Like a huge wall of blackness; there do none
Of the thin silvery vapours hang supine,
Or those bright clouds that sometimes seem to twine
A coronal to grace the brow of night;
Stars in Orion's studded baldric shine,
In all their wonted brightness; and the light
Of an unclouded moon half dims the dazzled sight.
The tempest hurries onward-how the flash
Of the red lightning leaps from cloud to cloud!
The gathering thunder bursts in one wild crash,
And sinks a moment-then, returning loud,
Seems bounding o'er the sky, as if 't were proud
Of its own potency. We need not now,
A sharer in the thoughts that round us crowd;
The soul is its own world, and the deep glow
Of the rapt spirit seeks no fellowship below.
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