For this the boon for which he poured His young blood on the invader's sword, And counted light the fearful cost- His blood-gained LIBERTY is lost.
And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga's plain?
Look forth, thoù man of many scars, Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars; It must be joy, in sooth, to see Yon monument upreared to thee- Piled granite and a prison cell- The land repays thy service well!
Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, And fling thy starry banner out; Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones Give back their cradle-shout:
Let boastful eloquence declaim Of honor, liberty, and fame; Still let the poet's strain be heard, With "glory" for each second word, And every thing with breath agree To praise "our glorious liberty!"
But when the patriot cannon jars That prison's cold and gloomy wall, And through its grates the stripes and stars Rise on the wind and fall-
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb, What is your carnival to him?
Down with the LAW that binds him thus! Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse Of God and human-kind!
Open the prison's living tomb, And usher from its brooding gloom The victims of your savage code, To the free sun and air of God, Nor longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's hand.
LINES ON PASSING THE GRAVE OF MY SISTER.
ON yonder shore, on yonder shore,
Now verdant with the depth of shade, Beneath the white-armed sycamore,
There is a little infant laid.
Forgive this tear-a brother weeps— 'Tis there the faded flow'ret sleeps.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone,
And summer's forests o'er her wave; And sighing winds at autumn moan Around the little stranger's grave, As though they murmured at the fate Of one so lone and desolate.
In sounds that seem like Sorrow's own, Their funeral dirges faintly creep; Then deep'ning to an organ tone,
In all their solemn cadence sweep, And pour, unheard, along the wild, Their desert anthem o'er a child.
She came, and passed. Can I forget How we whose hearts had hailed her birth, Ere three autumnal suns had set,
Consigned her to her mother Earth! Joys and their memories pass away; But griefs are deeper ploughed than they.
We laid her in her narrow cell,
We heaped the soft mould on her breast, And parting tears, like rain-drops, fell Upon her lonely place of rest. May angels guard it—may they bless Her slumbers in the wilderness.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone; For, all unheard, on yonder shore, The sweeping flood, with torrent moan, At evening lifts its solemn roar, As, in one broad, eternal tide, The rolling waters onward glide.
There is no marble monument, There is no stone with graven lie, To tell of love and virtue blent In one almost too good to die. We need no such useless trace To point us to her resting-place.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone; But 'midst the tears and April showers, The Genius of the Wild hath strewn His germs of fruit, his fairest flowers, And cast his robe of vernal bloom, In guardian fondness, o'er the tomb.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone;
But yearly is her grave turf dressed, And still the summer vines are thrown In annual wreaths across her breast, And still the sighing autumn grieves, And strews the hallowed spot with leaves.
Ir must be sweet in childhood to give back The spirit to its Maker, ere the heart Hath grown familiar with the paths of sin, And soon to gather up its bitter fruits. I knew a boy, whose infant feet had trod Upon the blossoms of some seven springs,
And when the eighth came round, and called him out To revel in its light, he turned away,
And sought his chamber, to lie down and die.
'T was night; he summoned his accustomed friends, And in this wise bestowed his last requests:—
"Mother, I'm dying now;
There's a deep suffocation on my breast, As if some heavy hand my bosom pressed, And on my brow I feel the cold sweat stand.
Say, mother, is this death? Mother, your hand!
Here, lay it on my wrist,
And place the other thus, beneath my head; And say, sweet mother, say, when I am dead Shall I be missed?
"Never beside your knee
Shall I kneel down again at night, to pray, Nor in the morning wake, and sing the lay You taught to me.
Oh! at the time of prayer,
When you look round and see a vacant seat, You will not wait then for my coming feet- You'll miss me there.
"Father, I'm going home,
To that great home you spoke of, that bless'd land Where there is one bright summer, always bland, And tortures do not come.
From faintness and from pain,
From troubles, fears, you say I shall be free- That sickness does not enter there, and we Shall meet again.
"Brother, the little spot
I used to call my garden, where long hours We've stay'd to watch the coming buds and flowers— Forget it not.
Plant there some box or pine,
Something that lives in winter, and will be
A verdant offering to my memory,
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