University of Virginia Library

V.—THE LAST COUNCIL, KENNEDY FARM.

John Brown, Kagi, Stevens, and Others.
Kagi.
All are assembled, Captain, as you wish.
I read the roll: to your name each answer.

[Reads.
Brown.
'T is well; I have convoked you thus, at once,
That I may brief unfold my plans of war.
You all are pledged to aid this government,
And keep its laws.

Coppie.
You mean the Constitution of the State,
Formed there at Chatham?

Brown.
I think you are familiar with its words.

Merriam.
We often hear the words, for good or ill,
But on the venture of our all demand
Its full, explicit meaning.

Brown.
This day will lead us forth to do, or die;
To liberate the slave, or wear his chain.
In a great movement, holding such vast risk,
There needs a plan.—a regulative code,—
To furnish possibilities of rule.
Surrounded by a host of tortured slaves.
When they rush down to join the little troop,
Unless we come provided with a dike
To regulate the flood and stem its wave,
All went to swell a chaos with the wreck.
But in this charter, one to bond or free,
Who comes to join our force, we move secured.
Here stands the pledge to keep the laws writ down;
The penalties are stringent,—death for one.
Unwillingly I speak of this;
But, in a cause so just, our bleeding hearts
Are wrenched with sacrifice, when, to an end
Noble and perfected, the sorry means
Limp on behind shrunken and thin!
This is a day for ages set apart,
Set in the voice of a most living God,
Who singles us as once from Israel's midst,
That stripling David, with his twelve smooth stones,—
He fell,—the great Goliah fell!

Coppie.
Not clearly all your plans I learn from this.

Stevens.
And so you think this day the die is cast,
That makes or mars our fortune?

Brown.
Yes, for the time is ripe. Have ye all signed?

Stevens.
All, to a man.

Leary.
All, whether black or white.

Brown.
I thank you for that confidence List, then:
Our move to-night will aim upon the Ferry,—
The silent armory, its guns and shot;
The bristling arsenal and rifle-works,
Intrenched in nature's fastness of the hills,
That cast their soaring pageant at the sky,
While at the foot the swirling currents roar
Of mighty rivers, raising barriers firm.
Here must we first descend; next, occupy,
Take the weak town, seize the stored arms,
Then fortify ourselves, and sending forth,
Summon as hostages planters of wealth and scope,
Them and their slaves, but no more slaves,—now friends;
And with this army, holding up our course,
Then search yon mountain-wall, and there built out
By circumstance, and its piled granite fronts,
Create our free Republic, in the midst
Of this dread citadel of slavery. Friends!
Tell me, do your hearts echo this?

Kagi.
It falls upon me like a clear surprise,—
There in the “hole,” plunge down as in a trap,
Like flies within a cage, split on a pin?

Brown.
I know ye, Kagi, for an honest heart;
Now, for these twenty years, this sun hath shone,
Ever from the dark depth of slavery's night,
With healing on its wings.

Cook.
You think the slaves might rise?

Brown.
Rise as a whirlwind, when the misty South
Drives her o'ertempered breathing on the cold,
Calamitous ices of the Greenland cliffs.

Cook.
Why should they rise for us? They need but step
Over yon frontier,—they are free. This face of slavery
Is drawn by sufferance.

Stevens.
I hold, whate'er the Captain rules is right.
His lead is mine; down in “the hole he pops.”
And I go with him, though I plunge to death,
And strew my corse along yon “rolling river,”
Making the stars much brighter at the sport.

Brown.
This plan so long has been upon my mind,—
It is the will of God! As evening's shades appear,
This Sabbath eve, with earnest, tearful prayers,
We go our way, armed and equipped for fight:
Stevens and Cook scour all the neighborhood;
My sons and I, after the town is held,
Remain there; Kagi and Copeland to the works;
Others to tear away the roads and cut the wires;
While Merriam and his men fall back
And guard the arms.

Coppie.
And all these arms,—hundreds of rifles sharp,
By the score revolvers, a thousand pikes,
All safely dropped behind to arm the foe?
They never had before a stock not made
On contract!

Brown.
Boys, I admire your sport. Men must have temper
Who freely give their blood and take their lives
Upon their arms, unpaid, to suit a cause
Grander than this earth's history records.

Kagi.
Captain, we all are firm to follow you,
Even to the last, and shed each drop of blood
That flows within us. What our ends shall be,
Fate and the future keep.

Brown
(alone)
Father, O look upon me now, in love!—
This day of trial, when my soul is torn
To lift thy feeble children, and repair
Their lifelong sufferings. From my first faint thought,
This hope beat in my heart, my nightly prayer,—
Oh Father! grant in mercy to this cause
With me, it may not fail, an erring worm,
(My course is rash; indeed 't is desperate,
Yet thoroughly inspired with love of man;)
And by my expiation, doomed crush out
The slave's blind torture My children's hearts
Are breaking with me, on this blood-stained reef,—
Myriads against a little fleeting band.
Father! thy arm
Has held me on since manhood's years were full,
Upon this single aim; with these gray hairs,
And this enfeebled frame, always I search
Thy counsels. If it be, that here must end
All that I sought to do to free the slave.—
If I must die, no happier soul e'er went,
Draining his life-blood for a principle!
My men see in this move more than my eyes,
But they have other hopes and other aims,—
Such are not mine. The sun has almost set;
From the high mountains soon the shadows fall;
The cool and colored breath of crystal autumn
Folds about the stars. How placid is the scene!
The girls are right,—it is a pleasant place.
And I am now to change this peace to strife,
Arming a race against a race,—their own!
Father! my heart is thine; oh, read its depth,
And may my thoughts to all be kind and just,
And sweet and peaceful as this evening air,
And the low sounds of twilight breathing balm,
And Heaven's unfading mercy to my soul.