FullReads

Suggested by a visit to the city of Washington, in the 12th month of 1845.

WITH a cold and wintry noon-light
On its roofs and steeples shed,
Shadows weaving with the sunlight
From the gray sky overhead,
Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built
town outspread.

Through this broad street, restless ever,
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river;
Wealth and fashion side by side;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick
current glide.

Underneath yon dome, whose coping
Springs above them, vast and tall,
Grave men in the dust are groping
For the largess, base and small,
Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs
which from its table fall.

Base of heart! They vilely barter
Honor’s wealth for party’s place;
Step by step on Freedom’s charter
Leaving footprints of disgrace;
For to-day’s poor pittance turning from the great
hope of their race.

Yet, where festal lamps are throwing
Glory round the dancer’s hair,
Gold-tressed, like an angel’s, flowing
Backward on the sunset air;
And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure
sweet and rare.

There to-night shall woman’s glances,
Star-like, welcome give to them;
Fawning fools with shy advances
Seek to touch their garments’ hem,
With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which
God and Truth condemn.

From this glittering lie my vision
Takes a broader, sadder range,
Full before me have arisen
Other pictures dark and strange;
From the parlor to the prison must the scene and
witness change.

Hark! the heavy gate is swinging
On its hinges, harsh and slow;
One pale prison lamp is flinging
On a fearful group below
Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe’er it does
not show.

Pitying God! Is that a woman
On whose wrist the shackles clash?
Is that shriek she utters human,
Underneath the stinging lash?
Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad
procession flash?

Still the dance goes gayly onward
What is it to Wealth and Pride
That without the stars are looking
On a scene which earth should hide?
That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking
on Potomac’s tide!

Vainly to that mean Ambition
Which, upon a rival’s fall,
Winds above its old condition,
With a reptile’s slimy crawl,
Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave
in anguish call.

Vainly to the child of Fashion,
Giving to ideal woe
Graceful luxury of compassion,
Shall the stricken mourner go;
Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the
hollow show!

Nay, my words are all too sweeping:
In this crowded human mart,
Feeling is not dead, but sleeping;
Man’s strong will and woman’s heart,
In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear
their generous part.

And from yonder sunny valleys,
Southward in the distance lost,
Freedom yet shall summon allies
Worthier than the North can boast,
With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at
severer cost.

Now, the soul alone is willing
Faint the heart and weak the knee;
And as yet no lip is thrilling
With the mighty words, “Be Free!”
Tarrieth long the land’s Good Angel, but his
advent is to be!

Meanwhile, turning from the revel
To the prison-cell my sight,
For intenser hate of evil,
For a keener sense of right,
Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the
Slaves, to-night!

“To thy duty now and ever!
Dream no more of rest or stay
Give to Freedom’s great endeavor
All thou art and hast to-day:”
Thus, above the city’s murmur, saith a Voice, or
seems to say.