THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh, and fibre thrill and creep,
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson'd with murder, touches him!
What has the gray-hair'd prisoner done?
Has murder stain'd his hands with gore?
Not so his crime's a fouler one:
God made the old man poor!
For this he shares a felon's cell-
The fittest earthly type of hell !
For this the boon for which he pour'd
His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost-
His blood-gain'd liberty is lost!
And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, pour'd thy blood as rain.
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest,
And Saratoga's plain?
Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars!
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument* uprear'd to thee—
Piled granite and a prison-cell-
The land repays thy service well!
Go ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout:
Let boasted eloquence declaim
Of honour, liberty, and fame;
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With "glory" for each second word,
And everything with breath agree
To praise "our glorious liberty!"
And when the patriot cannon jars
That prison's cold and gloomy wall,
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind, and fall—
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chain'd of limb,
What is your carnival to him?
Down with the law that binds him thus !
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of GOD and human kind!
Open the prisoner's living tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of GOD!
No longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's hand!
THE freeman's glittering sword be blest,-
For ever blest the freeman's lyre,—
That rings upon the tyrant's crest ;
This stirs the heart like living fire:
Well can he wield the shining brand,
Who battles for his native land ;
But when his fingers sweep the chords,
That summon heroes to the fray,
They gather at the feast of swords,
Like mountain-eagles to their prey!
And mid the vales and swelling hills,
That sweetly bloom in Freedom's land,
A living spirit breathes and fills
The freeman's heart and nerves his hand;
For the bright soil that gave him birth,
The home of all he loves on earth,—
For this, when Freedom's trumpet calls,
He waves on high his sword of fire,-
For this, amidst his country's halls
For ever strikes the freeman's lyre!
His burning heart he may not lend
To serve a doting despot's sway,—
A suppliant knee he will not bend,
Before these things of "brass and clay :" When wrong and ruin call to war,
He knows the summons from afar;
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.
On high his glittering sword he waves,
And myriads feel the freeman's fire,
While he, around their fathers' graves,
Strikes to old strains the freeman's lyre!
THE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if GoD pour'd thee from his hollow" hand,"
And hung his bow upon thine awful front;
And spoke in that loud voice, which seem'd to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
"The sound of many waters ;" and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks.
Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
O! what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side!
Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar!
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him
Who drown'd a world, and heap'd the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains ?—a light wave,
That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.
THE silent wilderness for me!
Where never sound is heard,
Save the rustling of the squirrel's foot,
And the flitting wing of bird,
Or its low and interrupted note,
And the deer's quick, crackling tread And the swaying of the forest boughs, As the wind moves overhead.
Alone, (how glorious to be free!)
My good dog at my side,
My rifle hanging in my arm,
the forests wide.
And now the regal buffalo
Across the plains I chase;
Now track the mountain streain, to find The beaver's lurking place.
I stand upon the mountain's top,
And (solitude profound!)
Not even a woodman's smoke curls up
Within the horizon's bound.
Below, as o'er its ocean breadth
The air's light currents run, The wilderness of moving leaves
Is glancing in the sun.
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