The Liberty Minstrel | Page 7

till all shall be free.
Should
mobs in their fury with missiles assail,
The cause it is righteous, the
truth will prevail;
Then heed not their clamors, though loud they
proclaim
That freedom shall slumber, and slavery reign.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE TO THE CHRISTIAN.
Words by Elizur Wright, jr. Music arranged from Cracovienne.
[Music]
The fetters galled my weary soul,--
A soul that seemed but thrown
away;
I spurned the tyrant's base control,
Resolved at last the man
to play:--
Chorus.
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian! will you send me
back?
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian! will you
send me back?
I felt the stripes, the lash I saw,
Red, dripping with a father's gore;

And, worst of all their lawless law,
The insults that my mother bore!

The hounds are baying on my track,
O Christian! will you send me
back?
Where human law o'errules Divine,
Beneath the sheriff's hammer fell

My wife and babes,--I call them mine,--
And where they suffer,
who can tell?
The hounds are baying on my track,
O Christian! will
you send me back?

I seek a home where man is man,
If such there be upon this earth,

To draw my kindred, if I can,
Around its free, though humble hearth.

The hounds are baying on my track,
O Christian! will you send me
back!
The Strength of Tyranny.
The tyrant's chains are only strong
While slaves submit to wear them;

And, who could bind them on the strong,
Determined not to wear
them?
Then clank your chains, e'en though the links
Were light as
fashion's feather:
The heart which rightly feels and thinks
Would
cast them altogether.
The lords of earth are only great
While others clothe and feed them!

But what were all their pride and state
Should labor cease to heed
them?
The swain is higher than a king:
Before the laws of nature,

The monarch were a useless thing,
The swain a useless creature.
We toil, we spin, we delve the mine,
Sustaining each his neighbor;

And who can hold a right divine
To rob us of our labor?
We rush to
battle--bear our lot
In every ill and danger--
And who shall make
the peaceful cot
To homely joy a stranger?
Perish all tyrants far and near,
Beneath the chains that bind us;
And
perish too that servile fear
Which makes the slaves they find us:

One grand, one universal claim--
One peal of moral thunder--
One
glorious burst in Freedom's name,
And rend our bonds asunder!
THE BLIND SLAVE BOY.
Words by Mrs. Dr. Bailey. Music arranged from Sweet Afton.
[Music]
Come back to me mother! why linger away
From thy poor little blind
boy, the long weary day!
I mark every footstep, I list to each tone,


And wonder my mother should leave me alone!
There are voices of
sorrow, and voices of glee,
But there's no one to joy or to sorrow with
me;
For each hath of pleasure and trouble his share,
And none for
the poor little blind boy will care.
My mother, come back to me! close to thy breast
Once more let thy
poor little blind one be pressed;
Once more let me feel thy warm
breath on my cheek,
And hear thee in accents of tenderness speak!

O mother! I've no one to love me--no heart
Can bear like thine own in
my sorrows a part,
No hand is so gentle, no voice is so kind,
Oh!
none like a mother can cherish the blind!
Poor blind one! No mother thy wailing can hear,
No mother can
hasten to banish thy fear;
For the slave-owner drives her, o'er
mountain and wild,
And for one paltry dollar hath sold thee, poor
child!
Ah! who can in language of mortals reveal
The anguish that
none but a mother can feel,
When man in his vile lust of mammon
hath trod
On her child, who is stricken and smitten of God!
Blind, helpless, forsaken, with strangers alone,
She hears in her
anguish his piteous moan;
As he eagerly listens--but listens in vain,

To catch the loved tones of his mother again!
The curse of the broken
in spirit shall fall
On the wretch who hath mingled this wormwood
and gall,
And his gain like a mildew shall blight and destroy,
Who
hath torn from his mother the little blind boy!
SLAVE'S WRONGS.
Words by Miss Chandler. Arranged from "Rose of Allandale."
[Music]
With aching brow and wearied limb,
The slave his toil pursued;

And oft I saw the cruel scourge
Deep in his blood imbrued;
He
tilled oppression's soil where men
For liberty had bled,
And the

eagle wing of Freedom waved
In mockery, o'er his head.
The earth was filled with the triumph shout
Of men who had burst
their chains;
But his, the heaviest of them all,
Still lay on his
burning veins;
In his master's hall there was luxury,
And wealth,
and mental light;
But the very book of the Christian law,
Was
hidden from his sight.
In his master's halls there was wine and mirth,
And songs for the
newly free;
But his own low cabin was desolate
Of all but misery.

He felt it all--and to bitterness
His heart within him turned;

While the panting wish for liberty,
Like a fire in his bosom burned.
The haunting thought of his wrongs grew changed
To a