Oration on Charles Sumner, Addressed to Colored People.
Oration On Charles Sumner, Addressed To Colored People.
"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me:
Write!
Blessed are the dead which die
In the Lord!
That they may rest from their labors,
And their works
Do follow them."—Rev. xiv., 13.
By EVANGELINE.
ALBANY:
WEED, PARSONS & CO., PRINTERS.
1874.
CHARLES SUMNER.
In Memoriam.
The nation's heart is sad!
Her best beloved son,
The great and good!
Has winged his flight from earth,
And white robed angels
Shift the gorgeous scenery of the sky
To let his soul pass onward
To his God!
Who sent his messenger to bid him "Come."
Sumner is dead!
Oh! many moons must come
And many go
Ere we be comforted again,
Or hush the sighs
That follow him up the golden stair,
Echoing through all the shining corridors
Of heaven,
Where our beloved one has gone to rest!
Sumner is dead!
Oh, sad refrain!
In which the teeming earth
Doth find a voice,
And nature's gentle hands
Are laid within the clasping of our own;
Stilling the joyous songs of long silent
Birds,
That no awakening sound disturb our grief!
She casts her snow white mantle
O'er the whispering grass!
And hushes the hasty footfall
Of coming spring!
Calling to the swift March wind
To carry along the golden clouds
To waiting angels
The mournful tidings of our woe!
Sumner is dead!
O sad repeating words!
That beat upon our hearts
Like showers of frozen hail!
Melting in tears!
That swell the tidal wave of sorrow,
Sweeping adown the great Pacific slopes,
Rushing along
To the sorrowful shores of the broad Atlantic.
Sumner is dead!
And bitter tears
From our sad eyes
Doth make us little recompense
For his most noble life! Though
The nations of the earth rise up to comfort us;
The glorious Orient and the kindly Occident
Stretch forth their hands
To us
Across the spaces of the earth!
Sumner is dead!
And the tears of heaven
Are mingling with the tears of earth,
Above his new made grave.
Showers of stormy rain
Descend upon the grave of our beloved dead,
Whose most honored dust
Is heirloom
To all the sorrowing nations of the earth!
Sumner is dead!
O mournful hearts,
At whose red-lintel doors
The angel of sorrow knocks,
And knocks again!
O tear filled eyes! upon whose drooping fringes
The heavy foot of sorrow presses hard
Be comforted!
For God shall wipe the tears from your sad eyes.
Oration.
There is a word,
When once spoken,
Fixes its meaning upon every human brain,
And finds a habitation,
Within the sacred chambers of the soul;
A word,
Whether spoken on the shores of the Orient,
Lying in slumbrous dreams
A-near the sun!
Or the land of the snow and ice,
Where gorgeous temples arise,
Whose translucent walls are
Builded without the sound of hammer or chisel!
Whether spoken
In the halls of learning or at the fireside,
On the ship's deck
Or the soldier's camp,
Finds an echo
In every human heart!
A word,
At whose sound
The pages of history open,
And the stirring deeds of our forefathers
Are marshaled forth to meet us!
Thousands of trusty swords leap from their scabbards,
And the hillsides
Are populous with rising life;
Long lines of shadowy soldier-forms
Start up,
Forming in dense array along the valleys,
Bearing evidence
Of the word,
Whose meaning
Has never been changed since
The Almighty traced the boundaries of the sea.
And bid the earth come forth
From the womb of waters!
That word is Freedom!
A word
Fraught with deepest meaning
To ye,
O ye down-trodden nation!
Who stood alone
Under the sombre shadow of the past, waiting
For the angel of the future, the sound
Of whose foot-falls made the present tremulous
With coming tidings!
A word,
Pregnant with joys to the poor fettered slave,
Toiling in the heat and burthen of the day
In southern fields,
Where the snowy cotton
Unfurls its fleecy banner to the breeze!
Or in the luxuriant tropics,
Where forests
Are all ablaze with gorgeous flowers, and birds,
And the odorous air
Is laden with orange and spice!
Or toiling
In northern latitudes,
Where his best efforts
And upward tendencies are clogged!
His life burdened with sorrow,
And ill-requited toil!
O ye men!
Over whose helpless nakedness
He cast the mantle of liberty, woven out!
Woof and weft!
Of the threads of his very life!
Ye men!
Whose faces were never so black as not to show
Behind their dark surface
The features of a brother!
Whose hands, unstained by crime, were never so black
As to be unfit for his grasp!
In loving token of a long lost
Brotherhood!
O ye men!
Whom he discovered
Prone in the valley of tribulation!
Looking with infinite longing, and sad yearning eyes,
At the solemn vault of heaven,
Where stars
Take their nightly course
Around a mysterious centre!
Wondering,
If within the folding of those azure doors,
There was room for you!
Ye men!
For whom this great apostle of liberty
Stretched forth the rod of justice,
And smote,
With a fearless blow, the stony rock of national caste,
Till all the waters of liberty
Flowed forth!
And he gave you to drink!
Ye may well
Stand with uncovered heads,
Above his new made grave,
Bowed down with a weight of woe—
A sense of loss too great for human expression!
For the good man,
Whom God called in the morning of his life,
To be a modern Moses
To an oppressed and down-trodden nation,
Upon whose lives
The iron-foot of bondage made its impress!
For the hand
That bore aloft the proud banner of freedom,
And scaled the walls of deep-rooted prejudice,
To demand
From the custodians of human liberty,
The scroll of your birth-right!
Lies cold and still
In death!
The strong right arm
That smote the pillar of
Your wrongs in the dust! Calling back
Fleeting generations, before whose revelations
The white faces of the earth
Stood still!
Trembling before outraged heaven.
Upon whose faithful pages every oppression,
Every lash of the whip,
Every tear
From long suffering eyes were registered
For future reference!
"Beware!"
Said Sumner in his great appeal to humanity,
"Of the groans of wounded souls;
Oppress not to the uttermost
A single heart!
For one solitary sigh has power to overset
A whole world!"
O, ye freed people!
Scarce had the name of
Fillmore
Traced its guilty lines upon the page
Of that most consummate act
Of cruelty,
When a hundred guns from Boston's classic heights
Belched forth their teeming fire
In ratification
Of the great treaty of blood!
Like a ponderous knell!
Their jarring sound boomed out your death cry,
Upon the soul of Sumner!
And all the night, of that most lurid day,
Alone with his God.
His fast retreating and coming footsteps
Made his silent chamber eloquent with his agony.
And kept their mournful rhythm
With the throes of his soul!
This true man
Who stood up in your midst
Like a pillar of light!
Endowed with power to emit a radiance
All its own!
When friend and foe alike
Refusing the succor and protection
Of a common humanity;
Would force back the hapless,
Fugitive slave
To the hell of slavery;
"Thus openly DEFYING
Every sentiment of justice, humanity and christian duty."
Leaving to coming generations
A record of human wrongs,
"Amongst the crimes of history, another
Is about to be recorded,
Which no tears can blot out!"
Said the upright statesman.
As he stood
Amidst the surging tide
Of calumny and misconception,
Bearing up
Against the pressure of the waves of "caste."
His solemn words echoing through the senate:
"By the supreme law
Which commands me to do justice;
By the comprehensive
And conscientious law
Of brotherhood;
By the constitution
I have sworn to support,
I am bound to disobey this act!
And never,
In any circumstance, can I render voluntary aid to it!
Pains and penalties I will endure!
This great wrong I will not do.
Better be the victim,
Than the instrument of wrong!"
Fired!
With Athenian eloquence,
Towering aloft in his noble manhood!
Bearing the grand proud form
Of a Cret'an hero!
Hurling!
The thunder of heaven
Upon the guilty heads
Of your inhuman and infamous oppressors,
Who would enslave
The very freedom of his speech!
And hang
The fetters of party strife
Upon his independent thoughts!
But he rose up in his giant strength,
Raising the prostrate column
Of your rights,
Manfully fighting for it, block by block,
Every inch of the ground