 | The Conflict for Civil Rights |  |
I.
A Golden House on golden columns raised,In redly tinted skies bespangled blazed;
With opening doors diffused a gladsome light,
And glorious gleams refreshed the Freedman's sight.
This was the Almighty's work; no fictitious sky,
That held this burnished Temple flaming high
Like precious jewels in their glittering ray
On beauty's bosom dazzling in the day;
Outvieing e'en the great Ephesian dome,
In lofty rearing the emancipated home,
“To wake the soul and living fire impart,
To raise the mind and mend the heart,
To make our people in conscious virtue bold”
Remember well the past, and know what they behold.
This is my aim to move by Heaven above,
The Freedman's pride, the Freedman's love.
Some angel guide me now while I write,
That which an angel only can indite;
Of liberty's celestial fire, sinking ne'er in vain,
“Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;”
For phœnix like she mounts on wings of flame,
And soars and shines another yet, the same.
When the swelling tide had sunk the Freedmen down,
When Heaven was darkened by a dreadful frown,
When thunderbolts had pierced with fearful flare,
When earth's foundations trembled everywhere
When we were wont, to whom the boon was given.
4
To quail before the cruel, sanguinary strife;
Then lo! there flashed into a rosy life,
An arch celestial o'er the storm strewn skies,
Traced there in love before our shrinking eyes.
Should not this wipe away all tears,
And banish all our doubts as well as fears?
“O, ne'er did mariner long lost at sea,
With no benignant star to point his course,
Hail with more rapture the first gleam of land,
Than I from War's seamed visage and wild glance,
Turn to the blue eyes of maternal Peace.”
So sang our own New England muse,
In strains so sweet they did diffuse,
The spirit of our new born life;
New born amid the carnage and the strife.
Our paths were rough and all unknown,
The rising mists had strangely strown,
And wound about our darksome way,
Their hideous wreaths of clammy spray.
But oh, the blessed truth; our toils were past,
The gathered clouds dissolved; behold at last
The zephyrs whisper and the pale stars shine,
With home lights streaming through the vine.
Before the gentle breeze the silver lilies bend,
Faint with sweet odors the night winds ascend,
Heavy with fragrance, with the honeydews wet,
From beds of violets and mignonnette.
At home, in rest, in soft, mellifluous notes,
On the still air, the plaintive melody floats.
A sweet voice rises through the starlight dim,
The song we love, the Freedman's Evening Hymn,
For by the rustic cottage, e'en at the cottage door,
We'll listen to the story, till we hear it o'er and o'er.
5
Unceasingly of freedom, from morn till dead of night.
“We all believed that God did know,
About the freedom that we longed for so;
I knew he'd find some way to show
Which path in triumph we should go.
We were living in our cabin, down by a little rill;
With our father and our mother,
Our sister and our brother,
And anxious for each other,
In that cabin by the rill.
With our father and our mother,
Our sister and our brother,
And anxious for each other,
In that cabin by the rill.
But mark the dreadful time, our family came to know;
While we our tasks were plying,
Our mother she was sighing
And the news along was flying,
From the valleys down below.
While we our tasks were plying,
Our mother she was sighing
And the news along was flying,
From the valleys down below.
We heard the tramp of men marching to and fro;
And the ringing of the bells,
With the whistling of the shells,
And the deafening shrieks and yells,
Were the sounds of coming woe.
And the ringing of the bells,
With the whistling of the shells,
And the deafening shrieks and yells,
Were the sounds of coming woe.
Down went our cabin now, like chaff before the wind,
And my father and my mother,
With my sister and my brother,
In the smoke they all did smother,
As I was left behind.
And my father and my mother,
With my sister and my brother,
In the smoke they all did smother,
As I was left behind.
Ah! how I cried for mercy, as I was struggling there;
Their cruelty unrelenting,
And no hand then preventing,
While I was sore lamenting,
My danger and despair.
Their cruelty unrelenting,
And no hand then preventing,
While I was sore lamenting,
My danger and despair.
6
Then the soldiers of the Union rushed quickly in to save,
And amid the dreadful clashing,
With the rushing and the dashing,
In the fire's fitful flashing
I was rescued by the brave.
And amid the dreadful clashing,
With the rushing and the dashing,
In the fire's fitful flashing
I was rescued by the brave.
They bore me o'er the river, across to freedom's shore
My senses they were reeling,
Yet the truth it was revealing,
Unto my wounded feeling;
That I was slave no more.
My senses they were reeling,
Yet the truth it was revealing,
Unto my wounded feeling;
That I was slave no more.
| The Conflict for Civil Rights | |