Now through the mighty pulses of the land
Throbbed the dark blood of war; and Sumter's guns
Were the first heart-beats of a better day.
The avenging angel, with a scourging sword
Of fire and death, with triumph on his face,
Swept o'er the nation with the cry of War!
Ten thousand boroughs, dreaming peace, awake.
War in the South, with the South! War! War!
The shame we nourished stings us to the death.
O, fair, false wife, South! lo, thy lord, the North,
Loveth thee still, though thou hast gone astray.
In truth's great court, vain has thy trial been,
For no divorce could there be granted thee.
The child you bore was bitter curse and shame,
And not the child of thy husband, the North.
It has led thee to miry paths, and raised
The gall of despair to thy famished lips;
It were better that such a child should die.
I.
The first year of the war had passed away
When Richard Wain, the planter, sprang to arms.
The day for his departure had been set;
To-morrow it would be, and as the night
Fell on the misty hills, and on the vales,
He sat alone in his accustomed room;
Thinking, he drowsed; his chin couched on his breast;
A dim light wrought at shadows on the walls.
Slowly the sash was raised behind him there.
Perhaps he slept; he did not heed the noise,
And Karagwe sprang in, and faced his foe.
He held a long knife up and brandished it,
And said, "As surely as you call or move,
Tour life will not be worth a blade of grass;
But if you do not call, and sign the words,
That I have written on a paper here,
No harm will come, and I shall go away."
He drew the paper forth; the planter read:
I promise if the deed is ever found
Of Dalton Earl's estate, I in no way
Shall lay a claim to it to make it mine.
I here surrender all my right to it.
"Why, this I shall not sign, of course," he said.
"You might have asked me to give back your Ruth,
And I would not have minded; but your game
Lies deeper than a check upon the queen."
"Sign!" cried the negro; and at Ruth's name,
A sudden madness leaped along his nerves,
Like flame among the dry prairie grass.
"Sign! for unless you sign this writing now,
You shall not live; now promise me to sign!"
He caught the planter fiercely by the throat,
Starting his quailing eyes, "Now will you sign or not?
You have ten seconds more to make your choice."
"Give me the paper then, and I will sign."
The name was written, and the negro went;
But not an hour had passed, before the hounds
Of Richard Wain and Dalton Earl were slipped,
And scenting on his track through stream and field.
II.
The slave first ran toward the hollow tree;
There left the paper signed by Richard Wain,
Disturbing not the deed; but took the Book,
And up the tireless road, tied on and on,
Until he gained the borders of a marsh.
The night was dark, but darker still the clouds
That loomed along the rim where day had gone.
The wind blew cold, and hastened quickly past,
Escaping, like a slave, the hound-like clouds
Whose thunder-barkings sounded in its ears.