Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

When starting through my timid heart, the thought that thou couldst die,

Shot, even amidst a mother's bliss, a pang of agony.

My boy! my boy! Oh cling not thus around me in thy grief, Thy mother's arm, thy mother's love, can yield thee no relief; The tiger's bloody jaw hath not a gripe more fierce and fell Than that which tears thee from my arms-thou who wert loved so well!

How may I live bereft of thee? Thy smile was all that flung A ray of gladness 'midst the gloom, forever round me hung: How may a mother's heart endure to think upon thy fate, Thou doom'd to misery and chains!-so young and desolate!

Farewell! farewell!-They tear thee hence!—and yet my heart beats on;

How can it bear the weight of life, when thou art from me gone ? Mine own! mine own! Yet cruel hands have barter'd thee for

gold,

And torn thee, with a ruthless grasp, forever from my hold!

REPENTANCE.

OUR Father, God! behold us raise

Our hopes, our thoughts, our hearts, to thee;
Yet not to lift the hymn of praise,

But humbly bow the suppliant knee.

For we have sinn'd before thy face,
Have seen unmoved our brothers' woe,
Though on his cheeks hot tear-drops trace
Deep furrows in their burning flow.

We knew that on his limbs were bound
The fetters man should never wear;
We knew that darkness hemm'd him round,
And grief, and anguish, and despair.

We knew-but in our selfish hearts,
There waked no throb of answering pain;
Yet, now, at last, the tear-drop starts,

We weep the oppress'd one's galling chain.

We weep, repenting of the pride

That chill'd our narrow souls so long; Oh, Father! may that suppliant tide Efface our deep and cruel wrong.

CHRISTMAS.

MOTHER, when christmas comes once more,
I do not wish that you
Should buy sweet things for me again,
As you were used to do:

The taste of cakes and sugar-plums
Is pleasant to me yet,
And temptingly the gay shops look,
With their fresh stores outset.

But I have learn'd, dear mother,

That the poor and wretched slave
Must toil to win their sweetness,
From the cradle to the grave.

And when he faints with weariness
Beneath the torrid sun,
The keen lash urges on his toil,
Until the day is done.

But when the holy angels' hymn,
On Judea's plains afar,

Peal'd sweetly on the shepherds' ear,
'Neath Bethlehem's wondrous star,

They sung of glory to our God,-
"Peace and good will to men,"
For Christ, the Saviour of the world,
Was born amidst them then.

And is it for His glory, men

Are made to toil,

With weary limbs and breaking hearts,
Upon another's soil?

That they are taught not of his law,
To know his holy will,

And that He hates the deed of sin,
And loves the righteous still?

And is it peace and love to men,
To bind them with the chain,

And sell them like the beasts that feed
Upon the grassy plain?

To tear their flesh with scourgings rude,
And from the aching heart,

The ties to which it fondliest clings,
For evermore to part?

And 'tis because of all this sin, my mother,

That I shun

To taste the tempting sweets for which
Such wickedness is done.

If men to men will be unjust, if slavery must be, Mother, the chain must not be worn; the scourge be plied for me.

MY COTTAGE HOME.

My cottage home! my cottage home!
How beautiful it lies,

Amid its quiet loveliness,

Beneath our bright blue skies.
A stranger's eye might mark it not,
Nor deem that it was fair;-

To me it is a lovely spot,

For those I love are there.

In summer there are wild flowers round,
And the tall forest weaves
A drapery of light and shade,

With its green and pleasant leaves;
And thousand birds are pouring out,
To the gay and singing breeze,
From the wild joys of their leaping hearts,
A thousand melodies.

The shadowing of an oak's green boughs Is flung the low roof o'er;

And clambering vines their blossoms hang
About the open door.

And round the harvest's ripening wealth
Waves in its yellow light;

And the feathery tassels of the maize
Bend gracefully and slight.

But were it thousand times more fair-
If o'er the fertile soil
Oppression shook her manacles,
And scourged the slave to toil-
To me the rudest desert wild

Were better for my home,

So never on its arid breeze

The voice of wrong might come.

But round my home, my cottage home,
The tyrant never treads,

And o'er the field's luxuriant wealth
No slave his sad tear sheds.
And were it not that I have learn'd

In other scenes to know

Of deeds of cruelty and wrong,

And of the oppress'd ones' woe-
And were it not that still a tale
Is wafted on the air,
Telling of fearful injuries,
And anguish and despair;

I might, perchance, almost forget
The guilt and wrongs of earth,
And deem that brightness gleam'd, alone,
Around the household hearth.

But woe for man's dark cruelty!
His selfishness and pride!

For him the earth is drench'd with tears,
With human life-blood dyed.
In his own freedom glorying,
He lifts his voice on high,
While on his brother's shrinking form
His crushing fetters lie.

THE CONSCRIPT'S FAREWELL.

FAREWELL, father ;

I had hoped that I should be
In thine age a staff for thee;

But when years have mark'd thy brow,
When thy step is weak and slow,
When thy hair is thin and white,
And thine eye hath lost its light,
I shall never seek thy side,
And thy faltering footsteps guide.
Where my country's banners fly
Proudly 'neath a distant s
To the battle forth I speed,
There to fight and there to bleed;
Not because the foeman's lance
Glitters in the vales of France;
Not because a stranger's mirth
Rises round my father's hearth;
Not at glory's trumpet call,
Nor in freedom's cause to fall;
But because ambitious power
Tears me from my peaceful bower.
Yet amidst the battle strife,

In the closing hours of life,

« AnteriorContinuar »