Vermont telegraph. [volume] (Brandon [Vt.]) 1828-1843, 1840-07-01
Poetry.
For the Telegraph.

Poetry.
For the Telegraph.
MISCELLANEOUS MUsINes.-No. 2.
THE PRISONER FOR CoLoR-A PARODY.
Cast down, great God, the fanes,
That, to unhallowed gains,
Round US have risen
Temples, whose priesthood pore
Moses and Jesus DER,
Then bolt the black mans door,
The poor mans prison.
Pierpont.
Look on him-through his dungeon CRATE,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As If it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his earthly bed,
His hand uphOlds his dropping head
His CORY frame is bruised and SCARED,
. Unshorn bis long neglected beard;
And DER bis withered spirits brood
Visions of chase, and stripes, and blood
No grateful fire before him glows,
And yet the winters breath is chill:
And DER his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent-save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferers palsied lip.
o sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desoiate
Just God why lies that old man there
A murderer made his prison bed,
Whose eye-balls, through his horrid hair,
Clean on him fierce and red;
And the rude oath and hcartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh and fibre thrill and creep
Whene'er-to ease mangled limb
He groaning moves, or looks on him
What has the aged prisoner done
Has murder stained his hands +? Alack!
Not SO; his crimes fouler one;
Con MADE THE OLD MAN BLACK!
For this he shares a felOn's cell
The ittest earthly type of hell
For this-the boon for which he poured
His young blood on the man-thief's sword
And counted light the fearful cost
His God-given LIBERTY is lost
And so, for such place of rest,
Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain
On Congo's ield-Liberia's crest,
And free Columbia's' plain?
Look forth, thou man Of many scars
Through thy damp dungeons iron bars;
1t must be joy, in sooth, TO see
Yon monument to liberty
Piled granite and prison cell
These freemen practice freedom veH!
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 boasIful eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty and fame;
Still let the poets strain be heard,
With 'glory' for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise our glorious libertyp
But when the patriot cannon jars
That PRISONS cold and gloomy wall,
And through its CRATES the stripes and star.
Rise on the wind and fall
Think ye that prisoners aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think We his dim and falling eye
Is kindled at your pageantry2
Sonowing Of soul, and chained 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 whitening curse
OF God and human kind!
Open the prisoners living tomb
Add usher from its broodng gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of God.
Nor longer dare as crime TO brand
The impress of the Almighty's hand.
February 10, 1910. ADJ.
For the Telegraph.
MISCELLANEOUS MUsINes.-No, 8,
THE CAUSE AND IT'S ISSUE.
From the dark verge of living death