Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1845-08-29
1oftrp.
The Branded Hand.
by JOHN C. WHITTIER.

nerve, in vain,
Pressed the iron Of the prison, smote the fiery shafts
Of pain!
Is The iyrant's brand upon thee2 Did the brutal era
To make Gods truth thy ~falsehood, His bollest work
thy sha mel
When oil blood quenched, from The torture the iron
was withdrawn,
How laughed their evil angel The bafled fools to scorn!
They change 10 wrong, the duty which God hath
written out
On The great heart of humanity too legible for doubt!
They, the loathsome moral lepers, tlotched from foot
sole up 10 crown,
Give TO shame what God hath given unto honor and
renown!
Why, that brand is highes, honor thar its traces
never yet
Upon old armoriaI attachments was a prorder blazon
set;
And thy unborn generations as they crown our rocky
strand,
Shall tell with pride the story of their fathers BRAND
ED HANp!
As The tempIar home was welcomed, bearing back
from Syrian wars
The scar of Arab lances, and of Paynim scimetars,
The pallor of The prison and the shaciIe's crimson
span,
So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend Of
God and man!
lie suffered for the ransom OF the dear Redeemer's
grave,
Thou for his living presence in the bound and bleed
ing slave;
lie for o soil no longer by The feet of angels tired,
Thou for The true Shechinah, the present homo Of
God!
For, while tho iurist sitting with the slave whip DER
him swung,
From the tortured truths of freedom the lie c! slavery
wrung,
And the solemn priestto Moloch, on each God.desert
ed shrine,
Broke the bondmans heart for bread, poured the
bondmau's blood for vine
While the multitude in blindness to a far off Saviour
knelt,
And spurned, the while, the temple where a present
Saviour dwelt;
Thou beheld'st Him in the task. field, in the prison
shadows dim,
And thy mercy to the ~bondmau, it was mercy unto
Him!
In thy lone and long night watches, sky above and
wave below,
Thou dd'st learn a higher wisdom than the ~bsbbIng
schooImen know;
Gods stars and silence taught thee as His angels only
can,
That, the one, sole sacred thing beneath the cope Of
heaven is man!
That, he who treads ~profanely on the scrolls of law
and creed,
In The depth of Gods great goodness may fad mercy
in his need;
But woe to him who brushes The SOUL with chain
and rod,
And herds with lower natures the awful form of God
Then lht that manly right hand, bold ploughman Of
the wave!
Its branded palm shall prophecy SALVATION TO THE
SLAvE!'
Hold up lis fre-wrought language, that whose reads
may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sipews change
to steel.
Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our north
ern air.
;Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look
therei
Take it henceforth for your standard-like the Bruce's
heart of yore,
In the dark strife closing round ye, le, that hand be
seen before!
And the tyrants Of the slave land shall tremble at
that sign,
Whenil points itsiuger Southwark along the Puritan
line:
Woe 10 the states gorged leeches, and the church's
locust band,
When they look from slavery's rampar.s on Ihecom.
ing of that hand!
The Forget Me Not.
FROM THE GERMAN OF MUELLER.
Silent DER the fountain cleaning,
10 the silvery moonlight hour,
Bright and beaulious IN its seeming,
Waves a friendly fragile flower.
Never letit be mistaken;