Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name; Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame ;

Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair universe,

We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and

curse.

A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been,

Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men:

The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.

And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey

Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of gray, How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke ;

How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke !

A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high,
A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply;
Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling sum-

mons rang,

And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang!

The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thousands as

of one,

The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington, –

From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's rocky

bound

To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her

round;

From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm

repose

Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua

flows,

To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches

stir,

Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of "God save Latimer!"

And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea

spray,

And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragan

sett Bay!

Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the

thrill,

And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill.

The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters,

Deep calling unto deep aloud,

waters!

the sound of many

Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand?

No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land!

Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have

borne,

In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your

scorn;

You've spurned our kindest counsels, you 've hunted for our lives,

And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves!

190

We wage no war, ·

we lift no arm,

we fling no torch

within

The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil

of sin;

We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and godlike soul of man!

But for us and for our children, the vow which we have

given

For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven;

No slave-hunt in our borders,

No fetters in the Bay State,

no pirate on our strand! no slave upon our land!

THE RELIC.

[PENNSYLVANIA HALL, dedicated to Free Discussion and the cause of human liberty, was destroyed by a mob in 1838. The following was written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work which the fire had spared.]

OKEN of friendship true and tried,

TOKEN

From one whose fiery heart of youth,

With mine has beaten side by side,

For Liberty and Truth ;

With honest pride the gift I take,

And prize it for the giver's sake.

But not alone because it tells

Of generous hand and heart sincere ;
Around that gift of friendship dwells

A memory doubly dear, —

Earth's noblest aim, - man's holiest thought,
With that memorial frail inwrought !

Pure thoughts and sweet, like flowers unfold,

And precious memories round it cling, Even as the Prophet's rod of old

In beauty blossoming:

And buds of feeling pure and good
Spring from its cold unconscious wood.

Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand
Plucked from its burning! — let it be
Dear as a jewel from the hand

Of a lost friend to me!

Flower of a perished garland left,
Of life and beauty unbereft !

O, if the young enthusiast bears,

O'er weary waste and sea, the stone
Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs,
Or round the Parthenon;

Or olive-bough from some wild tree
Hung over old Thermopylæ :

If leaflets from some hero's tomb,

Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary, —

Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom

On fields renowned in story,
Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest,
Or the gray rock by Druids blessed;

Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing
Where Freedom led her stalwart kern,
Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle " blowing
On Bruce's Bannockburn,

Or Runnymede's wild English rose,

Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows!

If it be true that things like these

To heart and eye bright visions bring, Shall not far holier memories

To this memorial cling?

Which needs no mellowing mist of time
To hide the crimson stains of crime !

Wreck of a temple, unprofaned, —

Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod,
Lifting on high, with hands unstained,
Thanksgiving unto God;

Where mercy's voice of love was pleading
For human hearts in bondage bleeding!

Where, midst the sound of rushing feet
And curses on the night-air flung,
That pleading voice rose calm and sweet
From woman's earnest tongue;
And Riot turned his scowling glance,
Awed, from her tranquil countenance !

That temple now in ruin lies!

The fire-stain on its shattered wall,
And open to the changing skies

Its black and roofless hall,
It stands before a nation's sight,
A gravestone over buried Right!

But from that ruin, as of old,

--

The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, And from their ashes white and cold

Its timbers are replying!

A voice which slavery cannot kill

Speaks from the crumbling arches still!