The Liberty Minstrel | Page 8

darker and
fiercer hue,
Till the horrible shape it sometimes wore
At last
familiar grew;
There was darkness all within his heart,
And
madness in his soul;
And the demon spark, in his bosom nursed,

Blazed up beyond control.
Then came a scene! oh! such a scene!
I would I might forget
The
ringing sound of the midnight scream,
And the hearth-stone redly wet!

The mother slain while she shrieked in vain
For her infant's
threatened life;
And the flying form of the frighted child,
Struck
down by the bloody knife.
There's many a heart that yet will start
From its troubled sleep, at
night,
As the horrid form of the vengeful slave
Comes in dreams
before the sight.
The slave was crushed, and his fetters' link
Drawn
tighter than before;
And the bloody earth again was drenched
With
the streams of his flowing gore.
Ah! know they not, that the tightest band
Must burst with the wildest
power?--
That the more the slave is oppressed and wronged,
Will
be fiercer his rising hour?
They may thrust him back with the arm of
might,
They may drench the earth with his blood--
But the best and

purest of their own,
Will blend with the sanguine flood.
I could tell thee more--but my strength is gone,
And my breath is
wasting fast;
Long ere the darkness to-night has fled,
Will my life
from the earth have passed:
But this, the sum of all I have learned,

Ere I go I will tell to thee;--
If tyrants would hope for tranquil hearts,

They must let the oppressed go free.
MY CHILD IS GONE.
Music by G.W.C.
[Music]
Hark! from the winds a voice of woe,
The wild Atlantic in its flow,

Bears on its breast the murmur low,
My child is gone!
Like savage tigers o'er their prey,
They tore him from my heart away;

And now I cry, by night by day--
My child is gone!
How many a free-born babe is press'd
With fondness to its mother's
breast,
And rocked upon her arms to rest,
While mine is gone!
No longer now, at eve I see,
Beneath the sheltering plantain tree,

My baby cradled on my knee,
For he is gone!
And when I seek my cot at night,
There's not a thing that meets my
sight,
But tells me that my soul's delight,

My child, is gone!
I sink to sleep, and then I seem
To hear again his parting scream
I
start and wake--'tis but a dream--
My child _is_ gone!
Gone--till my toils and griefs are o'er,
And I shall reach that happy
shore,
Where negro mothers cry no more--
My child is gone!
COMFORT IN AFFLICTION.
Words by William Leggett. Music by G.W.C.
[Music]
If yon bright stars which gem the night,
Be each a blissful dwelling
sphere,
Where kindred spirits reunite
Whom death has torn asunder
here,
How sweet it were at once to die,
And leave this blighted orb
afar!
Mix soul with soul to cleave the sky,
And soar away from star
to star!
But oh! how dark, how drear, how lone,
Would seem the brightest
world of bliss,
If, wandering through each radiant one,
We failed to
find the loved of this!
If there no more the ties should twine,
Which Death's cold hand alone
can sever,
Ah! then those stars in mockery shine,
More hateful as
they shine forever!
It cannot be--each hope and fear,
That lights the eye or clouds the
brow,
Proclaims there is a happier sphere
Than this bleak world that
holds us now!
There is a voice which sorrow hears,
When heaviest weighs life's

galling chain,
'Tis heaven that whispers, "dry thy tears,
The pure in
heart shall meet again."
The Poor Little Slave.
FROM "THE CHARTER OAK."
O pity the poor little slave,
Who labors hard through all the day--

And has no one,
When day is done,
To teach his youthful heart to
pray.
No words of love--no fond embrace--
No smiles from parents kind
and dear;
No tears are shed
Around his bed,
When fevers rage,
and death is near.
None feel for him when heavy chains
Are fastened to his tender limb;

No pitying eyes,
No sympathies,
No prayers are raised to heaven
for him.
Yes I will pity the poor slave,
And pray that he may soon be free;

That he at last,
When days are past,
In heaven may have his liberty.
THE BEREAVED MOTHER.
Words by Jesse Hutchinson. Air, "Kathleen O'Moore."
[Music]
Oh deep was the anguish of the slave mother's heart,
When called
from her darling for ever to part;
So grieved that lone mother, that
heart broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.
The lash of the master her deep sorrows mock,
While the child of her
bosom is sold on the block;
Yet loud shrieked that mother, poor heart
broken mother,

In sorrow and woe.
The babe in return, for its fond mother cries,
While the sound of their
wailings together arise;
They shriek for each other, the child and the
mother,
In sorrow and woe.
The harsh auctioneer to sympathy cold,
Tears the babe from its
mother and sells it for gold;
While the infant and mother, loud shriek
for each other,
In sorrow and woe.
At last came the parting of mother and child,
Her brain reeled with
madness, that mother was