“IF” AND “PERHAPS.”
Oh tidings of freedom! oh accents of hope!
Waft, waft them, ye zephyrs, to Erin's blue sea,
And refresh with their sounds every son of the Pope,
From Dingle-a-cooch to far Donaghadee.
“If mutely the slave will endure and obey,
“Nor clanking his fetters, nor breathing his pains,
“His masters, perhaps, at some far distant day,
“May think (tender tyrants!) of loosening his chains.”
Wise “if” and “perhaps!”—precious salve for our wounds,
If he, who would rule thus o'er manacled mutes,
Could check the free spring-tide of Mind, that resounds,
Even now, at his feet, like the sea at Canute's.
But, no, 'tis in vain—the grand impulse is given—
Man knows his high Charter, and knowing will claim;
And if ruin must follow where fetters are riven,
Be theirs, who have forg'd them, the guilt and the shame.
“If the slave will be silent!”—vain Soldier, beware—
There is a dead silence the wrong'd may assume,
When the feeling, sent back from the lips in despair,
But clings round the heart with a deadlier gloom;—
When the blush, that long burn'd on the suppliant's cheek,
Gives place to the' avenger's pale, resolute hue;
And the tongue, that once threaten'd, disdaining to speak,
Consigns to the arm the high office—to do.
If men, in that silence, should think of the hour,
When proudly their fathers in panoply stood,
Presenting, alike, a bold front-work of power
To the despot on land and the foe on the flood:—
That hour, when a Voice had come forth from the west,
To the slave bringing hopes, to the tyrant alarms;
And a lesson, long look'd for, was taught the opprest,
That kings are as dust before freemen in arms!
If, awfuller still, the mute slave should recall
That dream of his boyhood, when Freedom's sweet day
At length seem'd to break through a long night of thrall,
And Union and Hope went abroad in its ray;—
If Fancy should tell him, that Day-spring of Good,
Though swiftly its light died away from his chain,
Though darkly it set in a nation's best blood,
Now wants but invoking to shine out again;—
If—if, I say—breathings like these should come o'er
The chords of remembrance, and thrill, as they come,
Then, perhaps—ay, perhaps—but I dare not say more;
Thou hast will'd that thy slaves should be mute—I am dumb.
