THE BIRTH OF FREEDOM, JULY 4, 1776.
(An Ode.)
The die is cast,
Whether for good or ill,
Let no regrets our anxious bosom fill;
The Rubicon is passed,
Nailed are our colors to the mast,
A truce to doubting or unmanly fear;
For home for country now
Are pledged the solemn vow,
Our fortunes, honor, life, and all that we hold dear!
Thus to his loved one did each hero say,
When home returned at eve of this immortal day.
And she replied:
Well, since it must be so,
With you we sympathize in weal or woe,
Assert your country’s cause with noble pride;
Arm, arm, advance and boldly meet the foe!
Your country calls! you must obey her voice!
A recreant he who shrinks from such a call;
Since she enshrines our homes, our loves, our all;
Next after God, our country is our choice;
And Heaven forbid, it ever should be said,
That we, Columbia’s matrons, felt dismayed!
And let not love
Of wife or children you from duty keep;
What, though your absence lonely here we weep;
Th’ all-seeing eye will guard us from above;
And while the battle rages o’er the plain,
Our prayers for you shall not ascend in vain;
Or, should you fall untimely in the strife,
Heaven will befriend your orphans and your wife!
Beloved, one dear embrace,
And then a long, perhaps a last, farewell,
Should Heaven so will, my heart shall not rebel,
But still, this day with pride I shall retrace;
My country born to freedom and to joy;
Oh! bliss supreme,
This were a theme,
The harps of mighty seraphs to employ!
The world shall hail this truth proclaimed by thee:
Man is by nature, and he shall be, free.
Wake, wake the lyre,
Sound drum and trumpet, let the cannons roar
Proclaim the jubilee from shore to shore;
Go, join yon phalanx like a wall of fire
Impervious around young Freedom thrown,
And let each hero mark her for his own!
Thus spake each noble matron as she gazed,
Undaunted, where no mimic war-fires blazed.
The aim of government and laws
Is to defend true freedom’s cause;
The strong man’s injustice detect
And punish, and the weak protect;
The innocent to vindicate
By every power within the State;
Of evil to arrest the flood,
And use their influence for good;
If in these noble aims they fail,
And by majorities assail
The life or liberty of man
’Tis time to spurn the odious plan;
And any system to befriend,
Which may secure the wished-for end.
On every hand this cry we hear
“We purchase justice far too dear,”
To all its sons th’ indulgent State
Should grant this arbiter of fate,
Free as the air that we inhale;
Fresh as from ocean springs the gale;
Prompt as the light of summer’s dawn,
Sweet as the hay-swath on the lawn;
Not tainted with corruption’s breath,
Breathed from the charnel house of death;
And, as the people wield the power,
Why not reform this very hour?
So long as magistrates can fleece,
Crime and its causes must increase;
So long as jurors hands shall itch,
And gold stick to them fast as pitch;
So long as officers are paid
Just as they ply their venal trade;
So long as vile contractors fill
Their coffers from the public till,
And go unhanged, while soldiers starve
Or sink exhausted to the grave;
So long as venal lawyers plead
Not led by right, but urged by need,
And be, like cattle, bought and sold,
And barter Heaven itself for gold;
So long as judges shall be found
Who on the strength of party ground
Their judgments, and the cause decide
To suit self-interest or pride;—
So long, by mind’s unerring laws,
Effects will flow as bids the cause;
And when the bantling is adult,
A monstrous evil must result
Which soon will swallow freedom down;
Vice brooks no rival near its throne,
But proudly wields its scepter dread,
And rules supreme, a copperhead!
What use is freedom’s written scroll,
Unless ’tis graven on the soul?
Why vainly celebrate its birth,
If it has fled to Heaven from earth,
To aggravate our pain and cross,
By pointing out its grievous loss?
Astræa nought to me avails,
If but her phantom hold the scales;
Who, with her finger in my fob,
Like saint bedeckt, like strumpet rob,
And smiling say: “Peace, friend, be still,
This is the law—the people’s will.”
If slavery’s shadow in the North
Hath such results as these brought forth;
Then what must be the moral state,
Of those who feel its full grown weight?
Or of a land whose priests profane
God’s word and his most holy fane;
By preaching slavery until
The mass believe it is no ill;
And four of every six incline
To hail the monster half divine?
Ask each of these, and he replies:
“In slavery true freedom lies:”
Ask where is freedom’s proper sphere?
He points to Dixie; “Lo, tis there!”
Thus have they masked hypocrisy,
And dubbed her “young Democracy!”
Democracy’s vile sham and stain,
You don fair Freedom’s mask in vain!
You cannot pass in that disguise,
Nor thus elude our Argus-eyes.
Your boasted Christian brotherhood
Is one of violence and blood;
Your star of freedom pales its rays,
Becomes a farthing rush-light’s blaze,
And shows your “chivalry” as shams
Peddling their bogus nuts and hams;
And the vile rag you have unfurled,
The jest and scorn of all the world!
Nor is your mission one to bless
The weak and humble, but oppress;
Uphold the robber, thief, and knave,
And make the innocent your slave.
Nor do you foster hope and light,
But shroud your evil deeds in night;
Proscribe all learning, genius, taste,
And make your realm a howling waste:
And on this rock your church is built,
A corner-stone of vice and guilt;
And this you purpose to defend
Against all comers, foe or friend:
Entrenched behind this monstrous wrong,
You swear to rule, since you are strong,
You boast your dupes God’s chosen host
To scourge a world in “darkness lost,”
“Fanatics” who refuse to see
The glory of your “liberty!”
Thus you the God of hosts blaspheme,
As aider of your monstrous scheme;
Implore him to blot out his sun,
By victories through treason won;
This land with anarchy to flood,
And drown all kindred ties in blood;
Nay this great Union to destroy,
That you your bauble may enjoy!
Like some poor maniac raging wild,
Or some indulged and petted child,
Who for a rattle or a straw,
Some gilded trifle or gewgaw,
Screams madly with his ebbing breath,
You grasp your idols,—strong in death!
Enough! your purpose we perceive,
And spurn your doctrines! while we grieve
For our dear land’s supreme disgrace,
Defiled and tortured by your race;
Though brief and turbid be your day,
Your odious name will bring dismay,
Forever, to each generous heart
That with humanity takes part:
Henceforth, vile monster, live or dead!
We dub you viper, COPPERHEAD.
The copperhead! Has he a soul?
And does it seek yon starry pole,
When death relieves it from the clay,
And wing on high its airy way?
I question if a thing so vile
Can live beyond the present style,
Or if it should, where could it go,
To find its full repast of woe?
What think you, then, of transmigration,
Or interchange of place and station?
Perhaps the nigger-whippers pass
To shades still darker than of brass,
And copperheads, as seemeth proper,
Put on more sombre hues than copper;
And find new quarters made to fit,
In negro tenements, to-wit;
And thus become, in very fact,
The things that they so much have cracked;
And hear their master, late their slave,
With furious tone and gesture rave;
And feel the lash he plies so well,
And howl in this congenial hell!
Transcendant life! immortal part!
I long to know what thing thou art;
Whether a phantom light as air,
Or form symmetrical and fair;
An essence which can never die;
Or something passing as a sigh,
Which, when this frame dissolves in dust,
Returns to nothing, as at first;
Or whether thou hast always been
The same, through every changing scene,
And why to some thou art so sweet;
To others with such woes replete?
It cannot be this conscious being
Is all absorbed in feeling, seeing;
That those desires we cannot sate
Are doomed to end in this low state,
Unsatisfied; and that the powers
We feel within us and as ours,
Should, at our death, be swept away
Like shadows by the morning’s ray;
Nor can it be, that sin and crime
Can go unwhipt, if not in time.
No, we shall bask for evermore
In light, and light’s great source adore,
With those who love the right shall shine,
In union, peace and love divine;
Whilst copperheads and all their host
In hell’s tempestuous surge are tossed,
And wail forever “Lost, lost, lost!”
Oh! for a moment on hell’s brink,
To view the tortured reptiles sink,
Ten million fathoms in th’ abyss,
And thence rebound with bubbling hiss;
Their throats with sulph’rous vapor choked,
Their slimy length begrimed and smoked;
Each hideous skin as if ’twould burst,
By belching out the draught accurst;
All tortured and convulsed with rage,
To whom each moment seems an age—
Who vainly call “emancipation,”
To free them from that deep damnation,
Or else for swift annihilation!
Then might we realize the sting
That wrongs to men on spirits bring;
Then would we fully comprehend,
That God is justice and its friend!
Oh miracle! scarce had my prayer
Been breathed upon the vacant air,
When lo! a vision, or a dream,
As clear as pebbles in a stream,
Appeared before my wondering eyes
And filled my soul with deep surprise;
I’ll paint the scene the best I can,
’Twas thus the strange illusion ran: