"And what a fate awaits thee! a sadly toiling slave,

Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave!
Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall,

The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all !"

Oh!-ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble nature's fears
Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears,
I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer,
To feel-O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed wert there!

I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell,
And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison shackles fell,
Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's robe of white,
And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.

Slow broke the gray cold morning, again the sunshine fell
Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell;
The hoar-frost matted on the wall, and upward from the street
Came careless laugh, and idle word, and tread of passing feet.

At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was open cast,
And slowly at the sheriff's side up the long street I passed;
I heard the inurmur round me, and felt, but dared not see,
How from every door and window the people gazed on me.

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We paused at length where at my feet the sunlit waters broke
On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock;
The merchants' ships lay idly there in hard clear lines on high
Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky.

And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped and grave and cold,
And grim and stout sea-captains, with faces bronzed and old,
And on his horse with Rawson, his cruel clerk at hand,
Sate dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land.

But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read
That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made,
Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring

No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering.

Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff turning said:
"Which of ye worthy seamen will take this Quaker maid?
In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore,

You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor."

P

Grim and silent stood the captains; and when again he cried "Speak out, my worthy seamen !" no voice or sign replied:

But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my ear;-"God bless thee and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear!"

A weight seemed lifted off my heart—a pitying friend was nigh,
I felt it in his hard rough hand, I saw it in his eye;

And when again the sheriff spake, that voice so kind to me
Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea

"Pile my ship with bars of silver-pack with coins of Spanish gold
From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold,
By the living God who made me! I would sooner in yon bay
Sink ship and crew and cargo than bear this child away!"

Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their cruel laws!"

Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud, the people's just applause. "Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old,

Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ?"

I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half-way drawn,
Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn;
Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back,
And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track.

Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness of soul,

Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment roli; "Good friends," he said, "since both have fled, the ruler and the priest. Judge ye if from their further work I be not well released."

Loud was the cheer, which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay,
As with kind words and kinder looks he bade me go my way;
For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen
And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men.

Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed beneath my eye,
A holier wonder round me rose the blue walls of the sky,
A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and woodland lay,
And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay.

Thanksgiving to the Lord of life! to Him all praises be,
Who from the hands of evil men hath set His handmaid free!
All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid,
Who takes the crafty in the maze which for the poor is laid!

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I add the opening stanzas of an equally powerful and eloquent poem, with the few lines of explanation prefixed by the author.

MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk (Virginia), in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Massachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro, Somerset, in England in 1772.

The blast from Freedom's northern hills upon its southern way
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay :-

No word of haughty challenging, nor battle-bugle's peal,

Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemens' steel.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go-
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;

And to the land-breeze of our ports upon their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high,
Swell harshly on the southern winds which melt along our sky;
Yet not one brown hard hand foregoes its honest labor here;
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves that lash the reefs along St. George's bank,
Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank;
Through storm and wave and blinding mist stout are the hearts which man
The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms
Bent grimly o'er their straining-lines, or wrestling with the storms;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,
They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day
When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array ?
How, side by side with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call

Of her old House of Burgesses spoke out from Fanueil Hall?
When echoing back her Henry's cry, came pealing on each breath
Of northern winds the thrilling sounds of "Liberty or Death!"

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved;
If she can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from Truth and Duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen flying from slavery's hateful hell-
Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell-
We gather at your summons above our fathers' graves,

From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow,

The spirit of her early time is with her even now;

Dream not because her pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!

All that a Sister State should be, all that a free State may,
Heart, hand and purse we proffer, as in our early day;

But that one dark lothsome burthen, ye must stagger with alone,
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!

If slavery be a reproach, and too just a reproach it is to the Southern States, surely the citizens of New England may justly pride themselves upon the poetry which has arisen out of the sin and shame of their brethren. Time will inevitably chase away the crime, for national crimes are in their very nature transient, while the noble effusions that sprang from that foul source, whether in the verse of the poet, or the speeches of the orator, are imperishable.

Another of my sins of omission is Mr. Halleck, a poet of a different stamp, with less of earnestness and fire, but more of grace and melody. How musical are these stanzas on the Music of Nature!

Young thoughts have music in them, love

And happiness their theme;

And music wanders in the wind
That lulls a morning dream.
And there are angel voices heard
In childhood's frolic hours,.
When life is but an April day
Of sunshine and of flowers.

There's music in the forest leaves

When summer winds are there,

And in the laugh of forest girls
That braid their sunny hair.

The first wild bird, that drinks the dew
From violets of the spring,

Has music in his voice, and in

The fluttering of his wing.

To-day the forest leaves are green,
They'll wither on the morrow;

And the maiden's laugh be changed ere long
To the widow's wail of sorrow.
Come with the winter snows and ask

Where are the forest birds?

The answer is a silent one

More eloquent than words.

Still better than these verses are the stanzas on the death of

his brother poet Drake :

Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days;
None knew thee but to love thee,
None named thee but to praise.

Tears fell when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep;
And long where thou art lying
Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts whose truth was proven
Like thine are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine,-

It should be mine to braid it

Around thy faded brow;