University of Virginia Library

DEDICATED TO LIDIAN EMERSON

Soul of a world beyond my lays,
I track in vain thy piercing rays;
Too deep for thought, for life a good
In human nature's daily food.
Earnest in all, most quick to feel
That inward sense, whose laws reveal
States that are founded ne'er on chance,
But built of nature's opulence.
Or high or low, or foul or fair,
Where lies this human fate in air,
Thy instincts touch the natural place,
And teach with thy unerring grace.
Years not on you their signets lay;
Still light across youth's feelings play
In loveliest joy, and those clear eyes
Paint violets in their glad surprise.

JOHN BROWN.

I.—CHATHAM. CANADA.

A House on the Outskirts of the Town.—Harriet, Stevens; enter Brown, Coppie, Cook, and Kagi.
Harriet.
I do my best; our hearts are right.

Stevens.
We doubt you not;
Heaven knows, I am a soldier;
More than aught else, the child of camp and storm.
Had it been otherwise; would I had breathed
Beneath a parent's eye, and felt the thrill
Of love from some fond heart.

Harriet.
You do not mock me?

Stevens.
I know, this is not talk. Many or one,
Be it myself alone, I take the road
That goes to free thy race. No fresh debate;
For me I should not dare to live, and feel
More like a slave, than now!

Harriet.
My people are unversed in strife and arms;
Peace ever is the music of their hearts;
And, long crushed down, even those who, with us now,
Sit under their own vine, dream but of rest.
What think you of the meeting?

Stevens.
Our men must meet, and each must have his talk.
Thus, in the olden times, the fathers met.
We need this government provisional;
We make it freely and declare its laws;
And in that feast, at which the Saviour sat,
There were but twelve, so few; he felt,—
“Few tho' there be, that number shall prevail.”

Harriet.
I have persuaded four to join your band.

Stevens.
Four? One is an army in this cause!

Harriet.
Stevens! I know thee for a man of truth.
I hear the Captain questioned, as too rash;
Risking, upon a throw, the cost of years,
All to one end,—to march a score of men
Against broad States built up on providence,
Leagued by oppression and to crime congealed,
And you, and, like you, some few generous hearts,
Ranked like the Spartans, in a narrow pass,—
Some blue Virginia vale, where throb swift streams—

Stevens.
(Silence! breathe not a whisper!)

Harriet.
Fear not! but think, destruction follows this,
As the forked lightning cleaves its echoing shroud.

Stevens.
Some one must perish. That pure, godly soul,
The Captain, sets not upon his life the price
Would buy an empty shard? Life,—is it life
To breathe this tainted air of slavery's curse?
Republic!—flaunting to the winds its flag,
Free as the stars which spot it, and in truth
More chained than Austrian Hofers, or the vale
Where Tell let go his arrow, laying fast
Heavenly prescripts to each new-born man.

(Enter John Brown.)
Brown.
Harriet! we seldom can make sweet your days.
The woman's heart is aching for its race.
Their fate is hazardous, yet fear it not,—
The sword of Gideon in our hands is set.
Think of the men who till the wide-spread fields,
Lands rolling o'er a continent,
And every brother of the outspread race
Waiting to clasp a brother to his breast.

Harriet.
There is a pulse in that!

Cook.
This blow must fall; the sooner 't is the better.
I know that country well; the people hate
The South, and Southern institutions too,
There, where the shot must strike.

Stevens.
How many are there in that town?

Cook.
Five thousand.

Brown.
'T is but their love and gratitude we seek;
It seems as if the planters ask us there.
A price set on my head! (what is it worth?)
From near and far, I hear the ocean-swell,
The voice of Liberty o'er hill and dale,
A sound as blithesome as the wind-shook corn.

Stevens.
I laugh to think how they will stand surprised,—
Our dozen marching like a conqueror's host.

Kagi.
Whether to fall or rise, we go content,
And a new government, embracing all,
Goes with us. Small must we seem, our band too few;
But often from dim causes come effects
Of unsuspecting splendor.

Coppie.
The arms, you say, are ready, Captain?
Then, no delay. Some fear this plot is smoked;
Now, for myself, I vow, give me my gun,
And ten sharp-shooters' rifles by my side,
I lit a fire upon those Southern hills,
To burn till that black sky is all one blaze.
Cities shall shrivel in its burning arms,
And the close Nessus-shirt that kills a race,
Fit for a high deliverance, were it free,
Drops like the fetter off the skeleton
At the magician's wand, in midnight's trance.

Brown.
Now, for these thirty years, I kept this plan,
To raise a force, and give the slave himself;
Much have I pondered, long have read and thought;
Was there Sertorius, who thro' his brave plans
Built up a soul in Spain, artfully strengthened;
And Schamyl on the Caucasus, that nought
Could quell nor break, not all dull Russia's serfs.
And much I loved that noble hero-man,
Toussaint, so rightly called to be
L'Oucerture to a race who needed that.
But this our cause flies far before them all,—
Far as unceasing ocean to a tarn,
Securely sleeping on its rock-bound bed.
Now shall Humanity attain due place
To all its neighbor worlds,—a sun of love!
But what to-day has come? The woe, the pain,
And toiling bondmen, with no wage nor hope,
“Knowing no rights a white man can respect,”—
Drive from the mountain's crest, from sea and shore,
Rivet anew his bonds, send back the doomed!
This must not be! God is a most just God.
‘Do unto others, as to you they should.”
Forth in the gleaming fields the yellow grain
Waves for the sickle in a freedman's hand.
It falls; the old dead past falls off!

II.—THE PRAIRIE NEAR RAIN'S FORT, KANSAS.

Rhoda, Ellen, Kagi, then Brown.
Kagi.
Still dreaming of your home?

Rhoda.
Be sure, we must remember it for good,—
Our sunny cabin, with its garden-ground,
Its few sweet herbs, its scanty coop of fowl,—
And there my children played the livelong day!

Kagi.
And yet you chose to fly?

Rhoda.
Most surely; had we stayed, to-morrow morn
They dragged us off, the Southern planter's game,
And sold us far from home, to Texan fiends.

Kagi.
Men dream there is a Providence, and that
Decrees this life of slavery. Sold? Mother from child,
Torn from each other's lives, banished apart,
To feel the lash, to wear the chain,—tortured
For being born, nor pay for toil, and this,—
This monstrous curse is Providence! is God!

Rhoda.
Master, in all our woes, yet we believe
There is the Lord above us; He is good.

Ellen.
So, Rhoda, was I taught.

Kagi.
Then, were you taught, by whom?

Ellen.
There was an aged slave, bent to the earth
By weight of many winters and much toil,
Who somewhere on this voyage o'er life's cold wave
Had learned to read the Gospel. Oft at night,
When all the field was hushed, save the dogs bayed
The slowly passing moon, or the wind whispered
Thro' the cotton-wood, he read the Word of Life,
And taught us faith in God and human love,
And, most of all, patience,—the slave's sole coin!

Kagi.
As one of us you speak!

Ellen.
Seest thou, my skin is lighter than thine own?

Kagi.
I did not note it; for myself, know you,
My birth is Southern. On Virginia's hills
I breathe my native air.

Ellen.
And I, the same; the first in all the county,
Was that one from whom I claim my birth.

Kagi.
What deeds! and yet they call us maniacs,
We, who must strive to free a fallen race.
Thus have we fought in Kansas, these hard years,
A battle for the right. How few our band,
Our arms and means how pinched, our habit scant.
We lead a savage life; no Indian's trail
Ever by wilder speed was torn along
The pathless prairies, than where we pursue;
The rattle of the sleepless snake, the clear
And ringing whistle from the waving grass
Wherein the gopher stands, and the lone clouds
Softly and sweetly pacing down the skies;
The creaking cranes that Homer portraits, far
In heaven o'er our heads, and sounding 'neath our feet,—
A land all one profoundest loveliness;
And we, this hunted band, and hunting others,
Tortured and stung and maddened to fell deeds;
Versed to the crack of carbines, the wild fray;
Or, ambushed in the edges of the wood,
With murder in our hearts (men call it such).
Yes, well I know 't is death! My rifle rings;
The quick young life is sped; a mother weeps,—
Her youngest lies in the unburied heaven;
That corpse of human slavery pours forth
A doom, to which the Upas-tree was baim!

(Enter John Brown.)
Brown.
Is all secure, all safe? Is the watch set?
Nay, do not light the fire,—a long day's march;
It matters not; there may be shorter days,
Of which this march is part.

Kagi.
You look beyond these days?

Brown.
Yes, Kagi, I have spoken oft to you
Of this; a man must come to break the power
Of slavery,—one fetched upon this errand;
God has set his seal upon that soul;
As in the Hebrew days, the prophets saw;
The ocean rises from an infant spring!
Mark you, now, these things are but the preface
To our work. We crush the fangs of crime,
And spill the adder's venom to that end.
Kagi, I would you loved the truth of God!

Kagi.
Not more than I.

Brown.
Have you, then, prayed for help?

Kagi.
Oh, utterly!

Brown.
And heard no answer?

Kagi.
Never, the least! How could I in this tomb,
That bears cut deep the shapes of slavery?

Brown.
My child, there hangs a mist across your brow,—
You seeing, see not; in God's purposes
There is a wiser meed of goodness fixed
Than human tongues may utter. These are days
When hardness is endured: the well-paid spy,
The bullet at the heart, my children's blood
Soaking the prairie weeds, and far from home,
And all that consolation knows on earth
(That mother dear, who weeps on Elba's height,
Widowed almost),—yet bate I not a jot.
Within my inmost soul I know that peace,
The future's fruit, clear as yon twilight star!

Kagi.
Captain, I never hear your speech unmoved;
'T is sweeter to my ear than woman's tones,
When, on her trembling lute, in twilight's calm,
She sings the vision of her love to rest.
Old man, I never knew a dear one's eye;
And still, I think that true affection sprung
When first I felt thee, thou so firmly true.
Are men and thoughts null, because opposite?
I caught the histories; I learned the tales
Of sage and saint; the mad Crusader's rage,
And Luther's outspoke hate, and Cromwell's steel
Crushed in the heart-blood of that worthless Charles,—
I could not rest and live, I felt the call,—
A race weeps here in hell; I marked their looks;
Was I not of them, and that shriek of doom,
Thrilling thro' me, to go and breathless take
My life upon my arm and act for them?
But of your gods and priests, and heaven in store,—
I yet must take the thought that's next my mind.

Brown.
(aside).
(I have not known these whims,—what does he mean?
A dreaming youth,—how strange his look, how wild!)
Kagi, there is vouchsafed to each of us
A lesson of his own, and good for each.
To me, the God, who led His people forth
From Egypt's poisonous creeds and withered states,
Is nigh. His guiding touch I feel; He leads
Across life's wilderness my thirsty soul.
My children fell; a price set on my head,
Because I lead these fettered slaves to life;
Affliction, outrage, all that makes life hard,
Must fall upon my fate. And yet I know
A Father's eye is on me, always near,—
I would He filled your thoughts.

Kagi.
Oh, look upon me as a man who lives
To bear across this tempest-stricken tide
The olive-branch of peace! Most strange are we;
Culture dissensions, misformed sentiments
Diversify our aims; yet all must sweep
Into one mighty river of the Free,
As, instruments of forethought, firm we sail
Across the ocean of this strife to calm,
For weal or woe as one bound up to strive.

III.—A RESIDENCE, BOSTON.

Ellen, Meenie, Father, Brown.
Ellen.
I trust you rested well,—had pleasant dreams?

Brown.
Yes; always, if I sleep, my thought is sweet,
And better for the many nights I watched,
Chased thro' the wilderness; at least I fancy such.

Ellen.
Are you quite peaceful now?

Brown.
I may be sent for, but my mind is clear,
To sell my life as dearly as 't is priced.
There will be presents for the officers,
Twelve shots, and then the door a barricade;
I shall not hurt your rugs.

Ellen.
We honor you, and all we have is yours,
Nor can we aught return to match your rate,
Poised on that height to free our poor oppressed.

Brown.
The how and why I could point out more plain,
Did I not fear the sport of consequence.
I may seem reticent, and hide my plan;
It is an Indian game. In truth, this cause
Demands the wariest vigilance, closed lips,—
On every turn some hard-eyed deputy,
And our kind friends streams of loquacity.

Father.
Captain, this is a cause the Lord of Hosts
Must influence, not frail man. There is a guard
Set on your actions, not by constables;
There is a voice that guides you on your path,—
A pillar of flame to light you down the night.
Men like yourself may fall,—they cannot fail!
The tide that bears you on comes from a spring
That rises in Judea; that clear fount
Runs never dry until the slave is free.
There's something here,—here fixed upon my brain,—
Continually hammering; yet before I die,
Mine eyes must see your victory!

Ellen.
Father, be calm! Nay, do not vex yourself.

Brown.
'T is just; the feeling's here, within my heart,
And something tells these men, these officers,
Creatures of slavery, crawling in the dust
Of their official meanness,—'t is not manhood's place.

Meenie.
Captain, you are our prophet.

Brown.
Me, my dear?

Meenie.
I'm sure your beard and head look quite like theirs!

Brown.
Come now, dear Meenie, sit upon my hand;
I'll raise thee in the air, and then one day
You shall narrate how Captain Brown of Kansas,
“Old Brown of Ossawatomic,” took you
And held you on the palm, like this!

Meenie.
Oh, Captain, now be sure I will remember!

Father.
Your natural force all unabated yet,—
For your deeds you may be censured, and 't is thro'
That carping world, strict flatterer of the past,
Starched, uniform, unimprovised;
There may be different lives; there must be men
Framed of another model, angels sent
To lift their white wings o'er the sunken race.
I know not where you go, nor wish to know,
Yet mark these shaking limbs, these bleared blue eyes,
And hear the stroke of hammers on my brain,
Still beating on these temples for their mirth,—
Eyes, life, and brain fired by some eighty years
Of care, shed on these burning veins,—I say,
That nothing short of purblind helplessness
Can hold me back, this instant, from thy band!
Not seek their lives, not slay these murderers,—
Creatures whose hands are dripping with the blood
Of innocent generations?

Ellen.
Father, dear father! the Captain knows you,—
Knows that your heart is breaking in this cause!
Be calm! God, in his mercy, shows to him
A pathway to more light.

Brown.
Thou noble girl, child of a noble sire!
I go for that I came for, to this life,—
This earthly life, to me no sinecure,
While man makes war on man, and cruelty
Waves his dark sceptre o'er this stricken race.
Often it makes my heart bleed, as I look,
And find around me all the shows of wealth,—
The costly synagogue built on the gold
Wrung off the brows of pain, the foul-mouthed print
Mocking the good man's prayers, the smiling crowd
In jewelled splendor, taught by savage myths,
But for the millions toiling in their chains?
“Go, go your ways, old man; we know you not!”
It wears my heart; I think of Plymouth Rock,—
There, when my ancestor stept from the boat!
Oh mountains of the North, and you, ye streams!
Forcing your arrowy coldness down the rocks;
And ye, uncultured haunts of bear and fowl,—
The eagle soaring o'er your wide domain,
Untrammelled bird; and the wild wind that beats
Forever on your patient, unmoved heights,
Raise, raise my heart, leave it not comfortless;
Bear to me strength, and bid my aims reflect
Those higher natures, those the prophets knew.
I go,—much that I loved is lost; I go,—
I never can return. A voice within
Speaks to my thought,—there is a sacrifice!

Father.
My son, even for this came we upon our course.
Think of the virtuous saints great England burned,
Chained in the market-place with scorn and hate;
The godless throned above the good; think of our Lord,
Driven, in his youthful blood, and nailed on high,
Scoff for a mocking populace, between the thieves!
Not all may stretch them on the bed of ease.
My broken voice, in its half-stitled force,
Can still pronounce upon thy head
A parent's blessing,—parent, in hope and heart,—
And these my children dear (not recreant)
May yet support thee in the bitter hour,
When the low, wintering sun pales its last rays
Across the fatal door, if that must be,—
My Ellen, is 't not so?

Ellen.
Father, it is! whate'er that coming hour,—
Whate'er the doom, living or dying,—then
My heart, and they who in my heart have home,
Shall always beat as thine. Is it not thus,
Meenie, my child?

Meenie.
Yes, mother; not otherwise, for life and death.

Brown.
Forgive these tears! I was not made to weep;
But such true hearts, thus prest to mine, force out
The drops of tenderness. Do not forget me.
Never forget that still I love you all,—
An old and stricken man, tender for you;
Dear father, bless me! lay thy trembling hands
Across these furrowed brows, and smooth away
My whitened locks. It must be sweet that day,
Upon some scaffold's shrine (it may be that),
And when the closing scene is swiftly set
Of that tremendous drama, to one end!
Now, farewell! There is a heaven above us.
Oh, my friends,—Meenie, dear child, and Ellen blest,
And you our father, this poor erring man,
Who came to you a stranger, for his cause
Ye make a brother! God must keep your hearts,
And his firm blessing rest with you forever.

IV.—KENNEDY FARM, MARYLAND, NEAR HARPER'S FERRY.

Annie, Martha, Brown, Stevens, and Others.
Martha.
This is a lovely world.

Annie.
The hills are charming, and more green and warm
Than the vast mountains which we live beside,—
Home of the free. 'T is quiet here, so still,—
The people well-disposed; I fear that father
Goes, alone, too often to the Ferry.

Martha.
At least, he does not mind it.

Annie.
And Watson, too, is often there.

Martha.
They do not love concealment.

Annie.
Since we came first, we had a pleasant time;
The boys are kind and gentle, such as grace
A hunter's camp. There must be temper in them,
If they live an unexpected life
(I know dear father cannot bear an oath),—
Noble heart! Oh, why upon these heated days
Of strife and madness, and o'ermastering fate,
Should his wise, gentle character thus fall?
He should have safely spent his life in peace,
Like yonder level sunlight that smiles down
The trees, petting the shadows; and his heart,
Soft as your own, had better heard the bells
Sounding for early church, or faithful prayer
Said o'er the good man's grave; but this,—this blow,—
This agony of fate, of possible death,—
Oh, God, if that must be!

Martha.
Yes, that indeed. This duty ours, meanwhile,
To cheer the patience of the nervous boys,
Keep their dress whole, answer their modest wants,—
Why, Annie! I believe you're baking bread
The whole long day; and as for me, my needle
Must not rust.

Annie.
And it is safer so, with them thus leagued,—
Thou and thy husband, and my heart with both.
May not a woman be, more to her love,
More to her vow, than a soft ornament,—
A toy, a thing thrown off, and only worn
Like a quick hurried dream, all smiles or tears?

Enter Stevens, Coppie, Anderson.
Stevens.
I fear you girls will pine in this dull camp.
It's true we keep you company, by shares,
But feel you never timorous here alone?
The planters and their gangs are strewn about.

Annie.
We carry that upon us might prove dear
For Southern folks to purchase. Who are they?
Ignorant all, they not suspect our plans.
As Unseld, many a time upon his horse,
Will sit below the porch and gossip there,
Till the grave mastiff grumbles at his chaff;
They are quite friendly toward us.

Stevens.
Yes! but a single breath would blast this spark
Of friendliness, to one all blazing fury.
Is Cook a prudent man, so often gone,—
And then his wife,—there at the Ferry?

Annie.
I do not dream who is, or is not, safe;
Father controls the movements of the band.

Stevens.
And Coppie, that's a reckless lad, hot heart,
Wild as a mountain brook, as quick to rise.

Anderson.
The tramp was tough.
We're hungry, girls.
Here comes our father.

(Brown enters.)
Brown.
The arms arrive all safe, the pikes and all.
You girls must be sent off. How nobly, too,
Your hearts and hands have helped us in this cause.
Never can we forget your charities.
Annie, I think your mother's heart has made
Within your own a sphere all like itself;
And Martha, you were fit to mate with one
Who never yet betrayed in deed or thought.
But days may come upon us, far from these;
Forced marches, or a camp 'mid mountain-pines,
Where the slow-moving shades contract the heart
To fibres like their own, bred on the granite;
Biding aloof from men the tides of fate,
Some far-off echo indescribable
In its unspoken faintness, the dim sign
Of human life in sleeping villages.

Annie.
Father, since first I can recall my thoughts,
You have been always to me a sweet thought,
Oh, so dear! I rest upon thy love,
As if it were a cradle for the sleep
Of a frail infant;—father, must we part?
I know I am a woman, yet I shared
Your ambush, and the fortress on the hills,
For am I not thy daughter, even thy child?
To this thing, the freeing of the slave, is not
My life, even as thine own, forever given?

Anderson.
Annie, dear child, we soon might call thee back;
But now, in these dread days, our fate is blind.

Coppie.
You are a noble girl; for me, I feel,
I kept you with me if I held the dice;—
Your heart as trusty as the twilight star,
Your step as perfect as the prairie doe's.

Brown.
When we have raised our mountain camp, perchance
You may return, and with your sisters too;
While Martha goes to cheer and bless the cot
We love on Elba's side,—there where the Whiteface,
That bold eminence, uplifts the mind from earth.

Annie.
Yet, if we part, bethink you is there aught
We leave undone,—something your comfort asks,—
Some brief design, a word or thought of home
For those you love, and leave thus far away?
And we must, too, seem like them, when we go!
But always shall our hearts still comfort you,
True guardian spirits,—firm, immovable,
For that wild want of charity, the unthinking world
Must bear this vast design!

Brown.
Annie, this is a labyrinth that leads,
We know, to danger, if the issue hides.
Be what the persons may, planters or slaves,
We trust that God sees an equal service
We can do;—bringing these out of bondage;
Opening the eyes of those to read the right.
Christ's children to be sold! What then! Is crime,
Because decreed by legal formulas, less crime
Against God's precious words, his firm decrees?

Annie.
Father, never the hour shall pass, we will
Not think of all thy noble deeds, thy hopes,
Thy fixed reliance on the holy faith
That moves the good man's will.

Martha.
And may these tears unite us, my dear husband!
Must I, then, leave thee, such a girl as I,—
Scarce sixteen fleeting summers on my head,—
Slight as some bending reed by the brook's side?
To part, it may be ne'er to see thee more.
No more thy well-loved smile, thy cheerful voice;
Perchance, instead, there, in that silent grave;
There,—all to perish with me, at one blow,—
Mother and wife and child, and thee! all there!

Brown.
Poor child! God's blessing on thy tender heart!

Martha.
And yet for this, even for this cause, I give,—
Yes, give thee and myself. For faith is more
Than my affliction, even if the breath of life
Be spent on death, at my departure hence.
There must be sacrifice and hearts must break!

Brown.
My children! come to your father's arms.
This day is nearly done,—my children dear,
There is another life,—no more we part!

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.

VI.—HARPER'S FERRY, NEAR THE ARMORY.

Brown, his Sons, and Others.
Brown.
Stevens and Cook, you hear? You are assigned
To take the prisoners, hold them as hostages,
With servants such as ye may find at hand;
First to Washington's and Allstadt's, then Byrne's.
Kagi, you and your men, Copeland, and Leary,
March on the rifle-works, secure the watch,—
The bridge is guarded.

All.
“For truth and freedom.” We have the password.

[They go out.
Brown.
My children, this is the crisis of our plan;
Be forward, then, to meet it as becomes
Those who are pledged to die in freedom's cause.

Oliver.
We shall, dear father; 't is a desperate deed;
This town, in truth, is taken for the hour,
But our small force is scattered far apart.

Brown.
Yes, dear Oliver; not by our number
Are we strong; the God of justice aids the right;
A principle avails more than a host;—
And soon the slaves must rise.

Watson Brown.
None do rise yet.

Brown.
They have not heard our news; but fast, at once,
On learning of their brothers flocking in,
From Washington's, and elsewhere, they will join.
Watchman! watchman! hark ye, open this gate!

Watch.
I will be hanged if I unlock that gate,—
My God, don't shoot! four guns across my chest,—
Well, if you kill me, 't were no better then.
Come on, but on your peril, not on mine;
And now, I say, what is this fuss about?

Brown.
We come to free the slaves,—no more, no less;
We hold the armory and rifle-works,
The town is at our mercy. In God's hand
Our cause is firmly set; he will support
Our forces on this march, furnish supplies,
And cause the guiding light that fell
O'er Israel's pathway, in her darkest hour,
Thus to illume our road.

Watch.
That may be so; my lantern is put out,
And my employers look to me.
Captain, how many men along with ye?

Brown.
You long have been a watchman at this yard,—
How many are the negroes in the town?

Watch.
Just a small sprinkling to the whites.

[A shot is heard.
Brown.
Who fired that shot?—quick, Oliver, and learn!
I would not harm a hair of any head,
Save I were forced upon it.

Oliver.
Father, a cruel stroke,—a negro's slain!
A porter of the road, oh, sad mischance!
This man was killed unarmed.

Brown.
That was a sorry deed! but in this strife,
The conflict between races, and within
The narrow boundaries of this close-walled town,
Chance shots might kill. Our men cannot stand fast
As targets for the enemy, nor halt
While they bring in the prisoners; the best place
For them will be the watch-house,—a strong post.

Oliver.
Father, will not these hostages delay
And menace all our motions? 'T is much
If we may save ourselves; nor this, unless
We move, by early morning, for the hills.

Brown.
My son, in war there is a measured course.
The lives of others must become a shield
Between the outside foe and us within.

Watson.
Yes, if we had a force. We are too few.
They have a store of arms outside the armory
Secured against the freshets.

Brown.
Children, we are alone; no other ear
Might list a word of this, except your own.
To you, my sons, dear as my eyes,—the life
By which I live,—I frankly own our bark
May not be shipped upon a sea of oil.
Remember Kansas! think of your brothers' fates.
It may be in our family that blood
Descends, leading us forth to sacrifice.
Perchance our plans may fail for one short hour;
Yet 't is the vast design of God, who leads
A cause to victory by ill precedents.
Failure must prove success!

Oliver.
I hear the wagon!

Watson.
Cook is returned.

Brown.
These men must pass within the watch-house.
[To the prisoners, who enter.
'T is cool this early air, and fire is welcome;
Walk in. Your name, I hear, is “Washington,”—
I thought as much. As soon as the dawn breaks,
You will oblige by sending off a line,
By which your able-bodied negroes haste
To take your place. We come to free the slaves.

Allstadt.
Your force, doubtless, is large.

Brown.
We call upon a host that cannot fail.
No harm can come to you; as hostages
We guard you here.

Cook.
Captain, I'll make another move for Byrne's.
The morn's so chill, I am completely froze.
Stevens I do not need, while you may get
Hot work before you march.

Brown.
That's well; we shall not linger long.
Our plans are all destructive to delay.

Washington.
And do you think to make us march with you?

Brown.
No doubt for that you are brought here.

Washington.
Without our will, four men full-armed to one.
Had I my sword,—see, that is it you hold.
You do not know the history of that sword.
Frederick, of all the Prussians Great,
This sword to him whose name I bear once gave;
And if I had not been four times outmatched,
Its blade had cut your hirelings to the ground.

Brown.
You are a brave man, sir; we all see that.

Stevens.
Yes, it is true; brave as a slaveholder.

Brown.
Pardon their temper, Colonel.

Oliver.
Father, their scouts are active. One just passed
Mounted,—he flies to raise the neighborhood.

Brown.
Let none go by whom you can stop!

Oliver.
And of the train, the passengers are timid.

Brown.
Has that not gone? You then mistook my order.
It should have gone long since.

[They go out.
Washington.
What do these madmen mean?

Allstadt.
Fanatics, abolitionists, all doomed!

Washington.
And holding us as pledges of their safety.

Allstadt.
It is their trick of speech.

VII.—THE RIFLE-WORKS.

Kagi, Leary, Copeland.
Copeland.
We get no good of lurking.

Kagi.
We act precisely to the Captain's order;
He sent us: here we stay.

Leary.
'T is the last order he will make to us.

Kagi.
The hour is after eight. I see more men
Assembling on the street; I note their guns;
The country will be up; another hour
Must seal our doom. Copeland, you know for what
You came,—the general plot or plan.
You came to fight, to conquer if might be.
If not, taking the consequence of war,
Chief of a soldier's portion, to go down!
To you belongs, as to me specially,
An offering for the slave; for I was born,
Even as yourself, upon that poisonous soil,
That curls the shining asp of slavery.
My earliest faith, taught by my earliest thought,
Led me to this resolve: if e'er I grew,
Became a man, and acted for myself,
To live to free my brethren. You the same
In Oberlin, where you have dwelt so long,
Both you and Leary, the same truth were taught.
Thus we have learned life is a sacrifice;
We should expect the ripples on its stream.

Leary.
Yes, Captain, that is true; yet it is false
The slaves would rise, if we came here,—they have not!
They did not comprehend our move,
And when they learned it, listened with a cold,
Slow apathy, as if they learned it not.

Kagi.
This is the curse of slavery; it bears weeds.
The freeman knows, and joys to know, he's free.
As plants turn grateful to the parent-sun,
And insects warm their wings upon his beams,
So the free heart delights in each new growth,
That fettered natures still forever shun.
Now, for myself, the sport of storm and camp,
Even if a man of letters, 'mid a band
Of strong and robust woodmen, I am steeled
In my particular province, and my eyes
Look upon death as sure and safe release
From many a mortal pathos. You can live;
For me, I know this day concludes my dream.
I am not superstitious, yet I see
Now, as I saw at first, the Captain's plan
(That dear, true, sweet enthusiast!) told our doom.
See yonder band of marksmen crowding in;
Next, by a trifling force added to them,
They seize the armory, the arsenal;
Then, send a score of guns to hunt us down,
Like rats caught in a poisoned trap,—no flight.
Poor boys, I grieve for you, not for myself!

Leary.
I do not fear to die. Better go out
In one fierce struggle, than reserved to live,
So to be caught and hanged.

Copeland.
Whatever doom may happen, bravely meet!
Why, Captain, we might even now move off,
And take the mountain; 't is an easy thing.

Kagi.
His order we obey, the leader; one
Whom willingly we advanced to lead.

Copeland.
Remaining here is of no good to him.

Kagi.
That matters not! Copeland, in future days
The Captain's name may ring across the land
From Maine to Georgia; and the pens of France
Engrave his frank, familiar lineaments
Upon immortal dies; his deeds get rhymed
By bards in English verse. As for ourselves,
No more the eye of fame will see in us
Than in a lump flinging our vulgar names,
Confound our histories, and blot their scroll.
Content, I came to work to Freedom's hand!
Friends, for your sake, I hope our leader's plan
May be an overture to pure success!
If not, then let us hail its opposite.
Sustainers of the right,—mistress and friend,
Religion, love, and faith, that make life sweet:
For me the chief attraction to my heart,—
One with the breath I draw, the sun and stars,
Lies in my fixed resolve, to free the slave!

VIII.—CURRIE'S SCHOOLHOUSE.

Currie, Cook, Tidd, Leeman, Byrne.
Tidd
The arms are in the wagon.

Cook.
We must unload, and leave them here till dusk.
Our forces now can hold the roads, and soon
We shall be freemen of the hills. Leeman,
You can escort our prisoners to the town.
Byrne, you shall not be harmed; in all our aim,
'T is but to free the slave,—for that we fight.

Leeman.
March, if we're going; the time is up;
It is a sleepy world, the day's too cold,
And this sharp drizzling mist pierces me thro',—
Freedom will owe us something on our skins.

Cook
'T is nothing, Leeman, my poor boy; 't is heaven
To what we did in Kansas.

Byrne.
If you had stayed there, I should not have cried.

Cook.
It is no accident that fetched us here.
You must proceed and go before the judge.
He may exchange you for a negro boy,
Or keep you as a hostage. Nothing fear;
Your rights will be respected.

Byrne.
From the Federal troops I look for that,
And do not ask your leave.

Leeman and Byrne go out.
Currie.
My scholars are much frightened with your doings,
And know not what they mean. Were it not well
To let them forth? They cannot study now.

Cook.
Yes, presently; leave them with us awhile.

Currie.
One of my boys now I should like to take
Home to his house; he seems quite ill.

Cook.
Well, go your ways; lug in the boxes!
You must not feel alarmed. All those
Who voluntarily free their slaves
We shall protect; the rest we must employ
For our supplies, and confiscate their means.
Tidd, this is a weighty business; I mean,
The boxes crammed with guns, some hundred-weight;
And, in the cabin, those nine hundred pikes,—
We cannot go and bring them; there they rest.
Hark! the guns again! There's fighting forward.
Down at the Ferry our men are in the brush,—
The slaves will come by hundreds at that sound.

A Slave.
Master, there be no hundred slaves to come!
Why you have lived there at the Ferry, years;
That is the white man's country.

Cook.
Yes, it is so. I mean far off, from Charlestown,
Or Winchester, and Martinsburg,—that way.
As apt as runs the prairie fire alight,
Swift pacer thro' the dry November grass,
Licked by the persuading breeze that bears
Its ceaseless wave o'er the vast rolling fields,—
So this eruption, blazing on the sleep
Of that dead pageantry, the planter's shroud,
Shall burn it to a cinder, and calcine
The vampire beak that feeds on human gore.

A Slave.
Master, that may be, or may not.

Cook.
Certainly, boy; yet you believe in freedom?

A Slave.
Yes, Captain; ye see the slaves are stupid,
And half the time asleep; if they could wake,
They might get started somewhere.

Tidd.
'T is a bold argument. Sleep is a fact.
Poor Leeman! what a child, scarcely across
His brow twenty brief years have run, and this,—
There 't is again! That's sure the crack of rifles
From our men; I know their ring too well.

Cook.
The mischief's on us to be stationed here,
Just on the line of action, with hands tied
To all that's going forward. Matters not,—
Such is the Captain's order, and I'd hang
Over the gibbet, if he spoke the word,
If on the other side a bed of down
Gaped for my carcass.

Tidd.
How long are we to hold this watch, here in
This lonely hollow, made for darksome deeds,
Rather than childish pranks? and what on earth,
What can be done with all this store of arms
And heap of pikes and cartridges and food?
They have no wings, and we have simply legs.

Cook.
Crack, crack! Sharp work is going, and I hear
Surely the beat of drums, faintly and far!
Yes, I am not deceived, the troops have come,—
The railroad whistle! My God, the Captain's lost!

IX.—THE ENGINE-HOUSE, HARPER'S FERRY.

Brown, Watson, his Son; Coppie, Brewer, and the Rest.
Brewer.
Your terms are not accepted.

Brown.
I could have burnt the town. My son is killed;
My men, carrying out flags of truce,
Are shot like dogs. I spared the place;
I could have burnt it; all I ask for, now,
Is the permission to retreat as far
As the Potomac bridge; then a free fight.

Brewer.
Mercy is not the password of this day!
It was a horrid deed, the death of Thompson.
Young Hunter, maddened with his uncle's death,
Demands the prisoner be brought forth,—
His arms pinioned, he cannot resist;
Many stand round and Thompson in their midst.
Hunter with four men, armed with guns, half-mad,
Insisting on his blood; when there rushed forth
To him, Foulke's sister; threw herself before him
And held her arms, her form, to shelter him.
“Shoot, if you will,” she says, “you kill me first!
For shame to murder him, a helpless prisoner,
Tied, and in cold blood,—you dirty cowards!”
They dragged him forth, and ere he went, he said,
“You may kill me, but there remains behind
A countless race, who must avenge my death,—
The day will come!” Down-stairs they flung him;
Forced him upon the bridge, ho'ding their guns
Closely to his side, and through him fired six balls.
Then dashed him from the truss, into the stream,
Where, slowly sinking, now he lies a ghastly corse.
This is the answer to your flag of truce!

Brown.
And what of Stevens?

Brewer.
I went, as I had leave, and helped him up,
Fearfully wounded,—three balls in his head,
Two in his breast, another in his arm,—
And brought him to the tavern, nearly dead.
When they had finished Thompson, then they cried,
“Another of the cursed fiends! This one
Shot Turner and Barley! Kill the ruffain!”
Another, “No, let him die as he is,
Wounded to death; he suffers more,—more thus.
Let's go and make a mark of the dead nigger,
And fire at him!” Such is the talk I heard.

Watson.
Father, my pain is awful! Put an end
To my dread agony. Oh, in mercy,
Kill me! These torments rend my soul.

Brown.
My son, strive to endure in patientness.
These wounds may be a crown of glory to you.
The lives we give to free the slave, a hope
To suffering millions!

Fitzmiller.
(A hostage.)
You brought it on yourselves; you shot our men,
Murdered the citizens without a cause,
Even the slightest; sent a panic thro'
A peaceful, sleeping town; and all for what?
When Cross went out, Thompson was sacrificed.
Your men should have been patient. Stevens fired,
And so was shot himself. Then, on your terms,—
Simply, they are preposterous!

(Enter Colonel Simms.)
Simms.
“Over the bridge!” Give terms like that to you!
The thought is madness!

Brown.
My son, who lies here dead, was just shot down
When bearing out a flag of truce. My men
Are killed like dogs.

Simms.
If you take arms in such a cause as this,
Like dogs you must expect to be shot down.

Brown.
We fight not, unless they fight against us.

Coppie.
And fight I must, as long as life be left,
Or but my rifle goes, to sell my blood
As dearly as I may, at the highest price.

Simms.
Beckham was shot by some of you, unarmed
(The mayor of the town, a peaceful man),
Perchance this bragging youngster, a foolish boy.

Brown.
Our prisoners do not fear us, but outside
That drunken crowd, shooting at friend or foe.
This night in strength we may be re-enforced;
Then must we storm a path; now let us pass
To the Potomac bridge,—you not on us,
We not to fire on you. I might have gone
Ere noon, but wished to spare the town.

Simms.
Useless is debate, such terms are never given
In regular warfare, and much less in this:
A traitorous insurrection, in cold blood,
Planned by yourselves on countrymen in peace.

[Goes.
Byrne.
Captain, you see how much you took by that;
That job will never fash, so fling it by.
It had been cheaper for you to have moved
By ten this morning, or surrendered since.
Your youngest boy lies dead across the floor;
His brother dying, Kagi and Leeman killed,
And Thompson butchered. That was a brave girl!
(They say she did it, though, to save her carpet.)

Brown
(feeling his son's pulse, and firing).
You thought of that yourself (in open fields
A bloody corpse looks bad); but, gentlemen,
You know not of the past; my sufferings
In Kansas,—children slain, their houses burnt,
Their trembling wives doomed to a speechless fate,—
Watson, do not move, nor try to shoot.
Your pulse is failing; he needs some water.
Thank you, sir; this beverage will revive you;
Now drink it up; I trust you may yet live,
And bless this hour of precious sacrifice.

(At a later hour.)
Allstadt.
You have been farther South?

Brown.
Once, to the other border of the State;
I marked the kind of country and the slaves,
How to dispose my men, how move.

Allstadt.
And all you came for was to free the slave?

Brown.
Not more nor less; absolutely that!

Allstadt.
'T is now you see the end; your plans have failed.
Had you surrendered earlier, so far well.

Byrne.
Two of your men have fallen at the door
Since night;—'t is now most five, and soon
The dawn will break,—your son gasps dying here,
Why not surrender now? When morning comes,
Then Lee moves his marines at once upon us,
And just as certain his attack succeeds.

Brown.
When the assault is made, be sure keep low.
The troops will aim at us, not injure you.

Washington.
Insensate leader of a senseless band!
Your scheme has failed, and but five men remain,
And one a negro,—and you still resist!

Brown.
Such are the rules of war. Our terms were fair;
I offered them, they were refused; our lives
We now must sell as dearly as we may.

Byrne.
Why, what's the good? You calculated wrong.
The slaves have slept most of their time in peace;
And as for those strange pikes you armed them with,
A pistol in the hand were worth full seven.

Brown.
I had no proper field to try their worth.
The present moment fails, if fail it must,
But not for all. Within the brief and thin
Arrangements of one mortal day
Sleep the grand fortunes of the coming time,—
When universal freedom pours its beams,
Its brightening radiance, o'er man's fettered soul.

(Later.)
Byrne.
I hear the roll-call, Brown! They come.

Brown.
So far so good; let them come. Who is it cries,
“I will surrender”? Do, then, as you please;
I cannot undertake your safety further.

Byrne.
Hallo, men! here's one surrenders,—
Cry Dangerfield, cry surrender!

Coppie.
Get down upon your knees, unless you need
Your head blown off.

Brown.
Now, men, fire!

(The door is burst open, guns fired, Anderson and one of the marines fall dead. Brown surrenders; is struck thrice over the head with a sabre while on the floor.)

X.—THE ARMORY OFFICE, HARPER'S FERRY.

John Brown and Stevens lying on the Floor, badly wounded, covered with old quilts; Wise, Hunter, and Others.
By-stander.
Are you Captain Brown, of Kansas?

Brown.
I am sometimes called so.

By-stander.
Are you Ossawatomie Brown?

Brown.
I tried to do my duty there.

By-stander.
And for your present purpose?

Brown.
To free the slave from bondage.

By-stander.
Were others with you in this business?

Brown.
No.

By-stander.
And was more aid expected of the North?

Brown.
Those only who came with me were expected

By-stander.
Was taking life a portion of your plan?

Brown.
I did not wish to do so, but you forced
Us to it. The town lay at our mercy,—
That I spared; my prisoners I respected.
My son was shot (Oliver, who's lying dead)
While carrying out a flag of truce; my cause
Was just,—the right to free the slave,
As perfect and as good as God's commands;
And in that cause my right of warfare lay.

(By-stander goes; Hunter enters.)
Hunter.
Captain Brown?

Brown.
Yes, that's my name.

Hunter.
And for your wounds, how fare they?

Brown.
They are the least part in what's left of me.

Hunter.
The governor, Wise, is at the door, and wishes
To come in, and hold some conversation.

Brown.
Bring him in; you all are welcome.

(Enter Wise, Lee, a reporter, Mason, and Others.)
Gov. Wise.
We ask no word of you, save such as comes
All willingly; and what you say will not
Affect your case a hair's breadth.

Brown.
Thus much I know myself,—I never asked
For quarter, do not now. As to my plans,
There's nothing to withhold; they are made good,—
Free are all to hear just what I say.

Hunter
(aside).
How purely garrulous this old man is.

Brown.
Among my things there is a document,
Giving the general sense of why I came;
That paper I have sent for—this is it,—
The same, the name of Owen Brown indorsed;—
It is a Constitution I had writ
For a new government. I should have sent
In the next fortnight hence this far and near,—
Yes, you have read the articles I wish.

Lee.
Did all your men swear by this oath laid down?

Brown.
It is a pledge; I never take an oath!

Wise.
And where set up this novel government?

Brown.
Here in Virginia; I have known this State.

Wise.
And then what force and arms did you expect?

Brown.
Three or five thousand men, as might be need.

Stevens.
Do not misunderstand him,—he was not
Sure of this he'p, though he expected it.

Brown.
Yes, that is right; and then the slaves
And non-slaveholders, they would join our troops;
I could arm at once more than a thousand men.

Wise.
And then with these you would stampede the slaves?

Brown.
Never; they had remained here, on this soil,
Here in Virginia and through the South.

Mason.
Where did you find the money for this move?

Brown.
Most of it from myself; by my folly
I am here, and all against my judgment;
I was too merciful; I moved too slow;
As to myself, I freely answer you,
But not of others.

Mason.
How can you justify these acts?

Brown.
My friend, against humanity and God
You do a grievous wrong. It would be just
For any one, at any and all times,
To interfere with you. I hold the Golden Rule,
“Do as you would be done by”; I am here
Upon that mission, his servant in God's hand.
The slaves to me are equal with yourselves;
And I am yet too young to learn the difference.
We thought of no reward; we heard the cry
Of the oppressed,—that ordered us to come.
The sooner you prepare for settlement
Of this same question (the negro question,
That I mean), the better. You may dispose
Of me most easily, have nearly now;
That other may come sooner than you expect,—
The end's not yet!

XI.—CHARLESTOWN, VA., JAIL.

Brown, alone.
Brown.
A fearful hour is this; it rends my thought.
All that I hoped has gone, and all has come.
My Oliver! my youngest, bravest, best;
No, no. I do not mean it. Watson the same,—
They all were one, and he was but the last,
And so more like his mother. Both are dead,—
Gone, ere they scarcely had grown up to men,
Both dying for me, at my side. Why this
Must be a cause most righteous in His sight,
Who rules impartially the ends of life,
Touching their just proportions. And the rest
Of all my little company, so young,—
Leeman not twenty, the eldest thirty years,—
Eleven shot upon the field, and five
Who came with me reserved for death
By a relentless foe, slave-holding law,
Swift executioner to every hope
Nursed in a freeman's heart. And all so brief;
Now this is Wednesday noon. 'T is but a dream,—
That nightly march, the brisk attack, those deaths,
And Watson by me still with fading eyes,
Aiming his piece; and Stevens who lies there,
My poor brave boys, and I, an old—old man,
Led here to death, led up in mockery.
'T is well; within my soul is peace;
Such clouds must be the prelude to more light.
It may seem I failed;
Granted, 't is hard to comprehend my aims
Why live thus long, camped on a prison soil,
Yet never organize sufficient force
To save myself upon that narrow pass?
These things may be explained sufficiently
By that which will come after. I shall be
Denounced as a strange madman, and my plans
Misrepresented by the world.

(Avis, the jailer, enters.)
Avis.
Have you all you wish, Captain?

Brown.
So far as I can feel; my sight is poor,
My hearing is the same; I'm spared the pangs
Of listening to what else might wound the ear.
These senses are defrauded by the blows
Dealt on my naked head after surrender.
A stab from some fiend's bayonet, just then,
Had laid me on the floor; I passed for dead,
Else never here had lain this living corpse.

Avis.
Captain, they did not understand your game.
'T was strange that Unseld never smelt your plans,—
Those girls of yours were close.

Brown.
That was too great a trust to prate away.

Avis.
And Hofmaster, who tried to make you out,
And knew your boys, he said, by way of jest,—
“Yes, but his boys are just old Smith himself.”

Brown.
These things were so. Avis, when a man's life,
And all that's dear to him in life, is set
Upon a cause that one short breath may shake
To sundered atoms flying o'er the world,—
A single insobriety, a smart
Or spendthrift word,—their leader should accept,
With careful eye and the most searching thought,
Men sure to act in faith, conspirators
For a good cause, for love of doing right.
No word has ever passed the lips of one
Of my poor boys, that touched upon our plans.
(I offered up my all to thee, O Lord!
Impart thy mercy to the consequence.)

Avis.
I knew you meant it, Captain; rest in peace.
So far as I may do, all shall be done
To you and yours. Be, then, not hard on me,—
I do not ask your promise; but, in truth,
You will not seek escape, and ruin me.

Brown.
Avis, doubt not I treat you as a man.
I know the chains of bondage are not yours;
I know, as far as in your lies, you mean
Me well, and my poor boys. Fear not! never
I wronged a friend, nor struck, but in fair fight.

In the Court-Room. John Brown, the lawyers, officers of the Court.
Brown.
Where are my witnesses? I gave their names,
But none are summoned. This is mockery!
I cannot have a trial just or pertinent.
Robbed of my means, stripped of my purse, and all
Stolen from my pockets, in the engine-house.
When in that swoon I lay, given up for dead,—
I cannot summon counsel in my cause,
Nor bring forth evidence.

Chilton.
Your trial has been fair; the jury must,
As far as in the law is found, decide
In mercy to the prisoner.

Hunter.
To vindicate the law and keep it pure
Concerns the jurymen. Virginia
Rests upon her moral dignity, her rights,
Sure of herself; and Justice is the seat
Of Deity,—Mercy upon another
Column leans, from that we worship here!

After the verdict of Guilty is rendered.
Brown.
May it please the Court, I have few words to say.
I still repeat, to free the slave was all
I came for,—free, and keep him thus for good.
Had I acted for the reputed great,
Suffered and sacrificed as I have now,
By you all the deed had been applauded.
The book that I see here, the Testament,
Teaches me what I might wish from men,
To do for them, with those in bonds be bound!
If justice then demands my blood must flow
And mingle with my children's and the host,
The blood of millions, all whose rights are crushed,—
Then I submit. I hear that some of those
Who came with me (forgetfulness, no doubt)
Have said I sought their aid: that was not so.
Freely, and of their own accord, they came.
Now, I have done.

(The Court then sentences him to execution.)
In his cell the next day, Brown, then Ellen.
Brown.
That mockery's o'er; my time will soon be sped.
“Sentenced to die!” It needed this last word;
The parting hour has come,—a single month
Remains of all the sands of life, granting
No shadowy accident step in to end
Me swifter; for as long as life is left,
The vulture's beak is watching for my blood.
This trial was of truth a mockery.
For then must justice change, and take the side
Of the sorry criminal, when laws
Devised by human sins, make head
Against the eternal force of God.
My heart is dreaming. Soft I hear the birds
Piping their matin hymn to greensward fields,
There in my native town; or faintly list
My cattle on the hills,—the sheep-bell's tinkle,
And vigorous rush of the imprisoned streams,
Tearing against the barriers at their flank;
And, dearly loved, the soft-voiced herd at night,
Sheltering themselves from the lone prairie winds,
Against the low log-hut, or from the howl
That thrills the sudden blood drawn from the heart
Of the slim prairie wolf, far in the slough,—
I dream,—wake, wake, oh dream not now!
'T was strange,—
Some words, by me spoke in the court,
Confused the last year's work with this late plan,
But I can write and make that error clear.
I never thought the least to move one slave,—
Well, well, these wounds and wars, and my boys' deaths,
They may have crazed me somewhat, but not all.

(Avis enters.)
Avis.
Captain, there is a lady come for you.

Brown.
A lady? How, and what can be her name?

Avis.
She says you call her Ellen, that's enough.

Brown.
Ellen, Ellen! child of my dream. She here,—
O yes! oh, let her in,—too late, too late.

(Ellen enters.)
Ellen.
Once more, my friend, once more on earth we meet!
Our father sends his love, and Meenie too.
I should have come ere this. It is a thing
Requiring some debate to see you now.

Brown.
And no great sight, methinks. How glad I am
To hear your father's voice; his blessing rests
Still on my head. And Meenie too; they do not feel
As parted from me by these sad events.

Ellen.
Parted, dear friend! close in our hearts you live,—
There's no more parting when the loved one falls
Into suspicion, incurs obloquy, contempt,—
Then, as the sun poured thro' the threatening rifts
That drape the setting of an angry day,
True loves shine forth, warm and uplifting all.
All moments, in our hearts, your image rests,—
That dear, true thought is sanctified by heaven.

Brown.
You see me here, the same as when they first
Dragged me, half-dead with wounds and sleeplessness,
From that cold engine-house, in felon's rags

Ellen.
Well, I must say it was a prudent cut;
Give me your coat. I'll stitch it in a trice;
At least your visitors shall find it whole.
But who's this popinjay that's staring in?
(To a Virginian, in the passage.)
Young man, you just run off and get a brush
For me; I want to clean this coat; look sharp!

Brown.
That was a fatal shot; he'll come no more:
Now tell me, those who may not send are well,
I cannot name, or write to some again.
How do they treat my movements? Does it seem
As if I had thrust back the wheel of time?

Ellen.
We saw, as we came on, the good you do;
Hence all the soldiers round this cruel jail,
And limit to my visit sharply set.
Tell me your needs, of all you wish, at once,—
What messages to give to those you love,
And I can carry with me all you say
Upon my memory; and this same pin,
Rusted with a true patriot's blood, shed
For the coming years, always to keep.

Brown.
I think on some provision made for them,
I soon must leave so poor, my family.

Ellen.
My friend, your wife and children shall not want,
So long as in New England beats a heart,
Sharing in that humanity which all
Who wear our form, should own.

Brown.
'T is well; you cannot know the joy I feel,
To think their lot will not be destitute.
And, Ellen, sometimes think of these poor men,
Who ventured all they had, to free the slave,
And lost their little all.

Ellen.
Fear not! they shall not be deserted now,
When the dark storm has burst upon their head.
It is a miracle your life was spared
Amid that shower of bullets. Father thinks
It was the hand of Providence reserved
Your bright example for the martyr's crown,—
For nothing earthly, nothing common, mean.

Brown.
Rarely God permits examples like to this,—
So sweet my peace, like a young infant's sleep
Cradled upon its mother's heart. Must not,
Dear Ellen, something come from this, beside
The customary sequel of our lives?

(Avis enters.)
Avis.
The crowd begins to clamor; faith, they think
You plotting treason, when you stitch his coat.

Brown.
Then, must we part! Tell them at home
How much I feel their love; tell them my heart,—
I cannot speak my thoughts; weep not, my child,—
'T is but a transient parting, soon to pass!

Ellen.
Farewell, oh noble soul! if we must part,—
And in his mercy may God grant support
To thee, and to the hearts of those you love!

XII.—THE CONDEMNED CELL.

Brown, Stevens.
Stevens.
The leader gets the credit of the act.
Why, look ye, Captain! My wounds are fivefold
What there fell to you, of course, my luck;
And think of Thompson butchered by the fiends;
And Leeman's head blown off, after he cried,
Throwing his hands in air, “Don't shoot!”
And Newby's body eaten by the hogs.
And yet the sympathy is all for you,
The love,—people who live a thousand miles
Away, mending your coat, or writing notes.
Captain, it makes me laugh, or would do that,
If those untutored halls that shelled my head
Had not made laughing out of place.

Brown.
Stevens, you always were a cheerful boy!
There is some truth in what you say, and force;
And yet, right well you know, each friend of mine
Feels just the same for you, as they for me.
And then our men passed off in that sad way:
Kagi died in fair fight, and Leary too;
Stevens, a resolute soldier like yourself
Abides the brunt of war, accepts his wounds,
And never thinks the consequence will end
Of these our deeds with what is sped today.
On least events the pregnant issues hang!
Out of the shattered acorn, from that weak
And shredded circumstance, the tiny sprout,
The vast majestic forest fronts the storm,
In peace receives the lurid blaze of heaven,
And doth outlive the gash of centuries;
Then, from its mossy ruin, build new groves.
Not all of us will fall below that floor
With our poor, quivering atoms, downward dropped,
Swinging in empty space.

Stevens.
Old Harper's Ferry well deserved its name,
“The hole,”—a trap; just that and nothing more!

Brown.
It seems a moral clear to Southern minds.

Stevens.
A simple story. Down came we in force,
Some twenty strong, into that pit dug deep
Among the mountains, by the flashing streams
That sweep their billows thro' Virginia's vales,—
Came down, swooped up the armory, the bridge,
The railroads stopped, with prisoners filled the jail,
And morning dawned to show a thousand men,
A score of marksmen, shooting at a mark.
As I have often thought, yes! I could laugh
The whole of a long summer's day at that

Brown.
Stevens! I grant you, were our plans revealed?

Stevens.
Avis thinks Cook confesses something.

Brown.
Much as he knows. I never told the names
Of those who helped me. In the end,
The poor particulars of these events
Will be washed off, and only generals
Remain to mirror out their prescience

Stevens.
In our young day, we do not feel the same
As in your age. I never know this more
Then when I hear you reason of these things.
Kagi, methinks, held somewhat of your views.
There is in youthful hearts an element
That will not be defined,—Coppie and Cook
Acted from this spontaneous force,
And the old Kansas life ran in their veins,—
The wild romance, the charms of the free air;
To sleep within the moon, and feel the night wind
Curl around your farm, the bending grass
Whisper its loving secrets to your ear,
And sing you into utter dreams of peace;
Your friends the wailing winds; the halls of light,—
Your dazzling halls,—the stars!

Brown.
Yes, youth is hopeful; it the future hath.
The picture of your sisters yet you keep.
It will be safe, and shall go back to them.
Believe it, not for me more than yourself,
Shall drop the sympathetic tear.

Stevens.
Captain, I did but play! I know it thus,
But this to me seems a slow work in jail,
With all these sores teasing my brain at once!

(Avis enters.)
Avis.
Boys, speak low when you are talking!
I ought not leave you; but I'll not be starved
For all the Jews or judges on this street.
That growling crowd, outside, thinks both of ye
A team of rattlesnakes. Poor shucks!
If they own slaves, I am not one of them.

XIII.—HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Brown, the day before his execution; Mary, his wife enters.
Brown.
Wife, I rejoice to see you.

Mary.
Dear husband, this is a cruel fate!

Brown.
Cheer up as best we may! It will be borne,
Let us confess it, for the best.

Mary.
God help them, those poor children!

Brown.
Those who have gone from us are angels now;
Their father lives yet, nor repents his course
In just men's eyes, nor in the view of heaven.

Mary.
Our daughters yet are well, but bent with woe.
Martha, so young, so widowed, feels her loss
An agony! And Annie, that brave soul!
She weeps in silence for the loved and lost,
And for their dear remains. Dost think the law
Of a slave country will give them up to us?

Brown.
I doubt it not; yet happen as it may,
Where the good man rests, the spot is hallowed,
Consecrated ground; and there the flowers
Of trust and hope and soft-voiced memory bloom,
And fragrant everlasting all its dower.
Nay, do not weep, my Mary! 'T is God's voice—
That still, small voice,—ever I hear, content,
In the cold watches of the prisoner's night,
Bidding me trust in him.

Mary.
My husband! glad am I to hear these words;
And many years it is since you went forth,
With lint for wounds, and ointment for your hurts.
Always I feared for some sharp, speechless death,—
The rifle's knell, the sudden bolt that shears
The heart-blood of the loved one swift away,—
But this, this ending, and to-morrow's doom,—
I never thought of this!

Brown.
Oh, no, poor child! poor stricken heart,
How couldst thou think of this!

Mary.
Still, I had felt it better in my love,
To come, even with these pangs that tear like death,
Somewhat for the good of the dear children.
For them I thought one short, swift hour might seem
A consolation if I came, spending
It with you, even in one last embrace.

Brown.
Mary, it was a noble thought, worthy
Your generous, kindly mother's truth.

Mary.
They told you they would gather up the dead?

Brown.
Yes, fear not for them. Hear your husband's will;
I have just written it.
(Reads the Will.)
I know these things are hard;
I strive to make all plain, nor let the end,
The sorry end of all, step in to blot
Our parting. Thus, our dear mother taught me,—
“Most plainly speak the truth, all strictly do.”
Remember the last words I wrote you all,
And may the children find the Bible full
Of saving wisdom for their daily lives.

Avis.
The time is nearly up; are all things done?

Mary.
Must we then part so soon, and all those hours
Lost at the Ferry? My husband, from that world
You go to, oh look down and think of me,
And there uphold my heart. Recall our love
That nothing can destroy, and all our hearts
Shall ever point to thee, though gone from hence.

Brown.
Mary, this parting is for a brief space;
There is a coming hour when we no more
Must separate; and these dark scenes of earth,
Born in the hope of lifting up the bound,
Float off like clouds the dewy morning wears,
Quenched in the splendor of the eternal day.
Farewell! Oh, dry your tears! you may not grieve,
True wife, best friend, I suffer all with you;
Nor feel myself, and when you meet them there
At home, embrace them all for me; and each,
Tell them each one their father thought of them
In his last dying moments, each and all!

Mary.
Yes, husband; God's mercy on your soul,
And our poor weeping hearts. Farewell.

(She kisses him, and goes with Avis.)
Brown.
Oh, this is harder, now, than all that comes
Or went before! O God! this sacrifice
Of this poor weeping heart, that breaks for mine!

Cook, Coppie, in their cell, in irons.
Coppie.
To-morrow, then, the Captain dies.

Cook.
It is decreed so.

Coppie.
I felt that such must be the end, that morning
He divulged his plan; the attempt was fatal;
Suppose we held the Ferry for the hour,
Or for the day,—a town ten miles from this
The county seat; a railroad to the place,
Troops at disposal,—poor ones I admit;
Yet from their number, better than our score.

Cook.
And do you yet believe it was his plan
To run off slaves as in Missouri times?

Coppie.
Such is my notion.

Cook.
I do not comprehend; I neither heard
Nor thought of running off the slaves,—a stand
Here on Virginia's soil was all I knew.

Coppie.
Yet Copeland holds with me; and did not Brown
Make a like statement in the court? In truth,
He may have been confused,—his mind perturbed.

Cook.
Yes, in faith he did; 't was but a blunder.
The loss of those he loved usurped his sense,
And all that sad experience clouded o'er
His eagle soul, and drew a film across it.

Coppie.
I never have regretted that I came.
'T is hard to die just as one's life begins.
But, then, we threw for chances, and we lost!

Cook.
Your youth has purchased sympathy; but Wise
Never could pardon you, and live himself.

Coppie.
I know they hate us, look on us as fiends!

Cook.
The Captain blames me for what I have said.

Coppie.
He ever is severe and just; at times
I thought him bigoted; but now at last,
When all we hoped is lost, and on that Cross
To-morrow's dawn reveals, all scores are blanked.

Cook.
Another week will swing us there, ourselves.

Coppie.
Then let us die as he does; let us show
His firm, unaltering courage, his true faith
In that,—this cause is worth the price we fixed,—
Worthy of living for, of dying for,
Though our brief years have taught a lesson brief
Of human ills and all that life denies.
Still, there was this, this festering cloud of crime,
This much-enduring race fated to Hell!
Could not a few, a score, of living souls,
Mated with one who never was surpassed,
Go forth into that howling wilderness
To do or die? and win a hero's grave,
Leaving the consequence to breed its truth
In other kindred hearts, whate'er our fates?

Cook.
If we gain nothing by it; in the book
Of fame, no single line?

Coppie.
The leader of an enterprise shines most,
As mountain summits catch the early sun!

XIV. THE LAST MORNING.

Brown,
alone.
Never I planned
To kill or ravage, torture or destroy,
Not in rebellion, not to slay their foes,
Incite the slave,—solely to loose his cords.
“Do unto me as ye would have me do,
And in my bonds be bound, even as myself”:
By that, as far as in me, I have done.
God hath not parted persons in his law.
Father! if by thy will I came to be
What now I am; if ever in my heart,
From my first recollection, still I felt
Thy guiding hand,—be still to me the same,
This lovely hour, all gentleness and peace,
Ere the faint dawn has painted the dim sky,
And all her beauty sleeps upon the world.
I am at peace with all men; in my heart
I feel the quiet of thy morn. Oh, give
Me strength of hope and power of faith to meet
This sacrifice I make for man; myself,
A poor and sinful creature, worn and weak.
Unfailing God, our friend, Oh, give me strength!
Truly uplift in love, renew my prayer.
Father, pardon what I have done amiss!
These deeds were sad; they wore a troubled look;
Yet for that principle alone, of right,
I forward moved,—then sanctify these acts.
May they upon the future throw their light,
As yonder rising orb, who paints the morn
With beauteous tints of life; let them awake
The hearts of a great people, who have moved
Too sluggishly in freedom's cause; and let
My name, if vain, unnoticed, be the word
To lift a struggling race, and free the slave!
O God! my saviour, my redeemer too,
Receive me to thyself! now that the day
Has dawned when I must die; and those I leave,
That poor and scattered remnant on the hills,
Of my contentment something breathe in them,—
And let their weeping souls be filled with light,
And from their breaking hearts be heaven in view,
Seeing that they, who try for duty, so to live,
However weak, and so to die for it,
May with thee be received.

THE MARTYR'S SACRIFICE.