Page:Poems written during the progress of the abolition question in the United States.djvu/49

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STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.^[1]

Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
Are we the sons by whom is borne
The mantles which the dead have worn?

And shall we crouch above these graves,
With craven soul and fettered lip?
Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,
And tremble at the driver's whip?
Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak—but as our masters please?

↑ The 'Times' alluded to, were those evil times of the pro-slavery Meeting in Faneuil Hall for the suppression of Freedom of Speech, lest it should endanger the foundations of commercial society. In the view of the outrages which a careful observation of the times had enabled him to foresee most spring from the false witness borne against the abolitionists by the speakers at that meeting, well might Garrison say of them, 'Sir, I consider the man who fires a city, guiltless in comparison.'

[1] The 'Times' alluded to, were those evil times of the pro-slavery Meeting in Faneuil Hall for the suppression of Freedom of Speech, lest it should endanger the foundations of commercial society. In the view of the outrages which a careful observation of the times had enabled him to foresee most spring from the false witness borne against the abolitionists by the speakers at that meeting, well might Garrison say of them, 'Sir, I consider the man who fires a city, guiltless in comparison.'

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