Pictures

I.
O the agony, the agony,
    Of the millions who are chained
In the triple links of Slavery, 
    Where long the fiend hath reigned!
How gnaws the gyve into the flesh,
How leaps the blood beneath the lash,
White Woman’s shriek, and childhood’s wail,
And Manhood’s curse, lead down the gale
That surges from their blighted lands
Like smoke from Hades’ furnace brands
There flow the streams of silent tears
Down-trickling through their icy years,
Yet loos’ning, o’er its mountain path,
The high hung avalanche of wrath,
Whose thundering down shall crush, ore long,
The midnight throne of anarch Wrong.
II.
O the misery, the misery,
    Of the spirits, dungeon-quenched,
Whose love was like a pleasant tree
    From its bed by whirlwinds wrenched;
No hope can make their torn hearts stout,
Their lamp of joy is trodden out,
And Darkness, with its demon breath,
Comes down upon the soul like Death,
Leaving its waves, by tempest chas’d,
A black unfathomable waste:
No Isle of Peace its sunshine keeps
Serene, in all their weltering deeps;
But stormy pulses still contend,
And in wild play the surface rend,
While sullen vengeance fed with woe
Rolls deep its giant swelt below.
III.
O the cowardice, the cowardice,
    Of the lily-livered slaves,
Whose mushroom plant of nobleness,
    Sprouts from their fathers graves,—
The serfs who hear the fetter clank,
When Freedom’s war pour’d rank on rank
Of Freedom’s sons, to guard her fame,
Yet feel no burning flesh of shame;
Who hear the Scoffer’s proud ‘ha! ha!’
From Afrie Bey and Russian Czar,
Ring tauntingly across the ware—
Yet lift no arm to free the slave! 
Ninefold shall Scorn’s avenging whip
Their recreant souls in scourging clip,
And long shall noble hearts abhor
Their traitor-deeds to Manhood’s law.
IV.
O the manliness, the manliness,
    Of souls that dare be free,
Whose love is for the Brotherless
    However low he be;
Whose open hearts are ever warm,
Yet brave to breast Oppression’s storm,
Who cannot hear that Power should bind
The poorest brother of their kind;
With God’s great Truth their hearts shall be
Made, as they make their fellows, free,
And bear upon their fronts the seal
Wherewith He stamps the Brave and Leal.
Right royally shall they go forth,
O’er the high places of the earth—
Monarchs of Men, and bright compeers
Of Angels in their starry spheres.