Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-11-26
THE DAYS THAT ARE GONE
ny CHARLES MACRAY, l.. l.. D.

HY CHARLES MACkAf, Ls J." D
"For at least a thousand years, the whole coun-
trv seemed in n Tong and sunny dredm Every
man had his little plot, or could enclose 1t Tor a
small annual acknowledgment, and the rural race
lived on with little excrtion and no care. - U""dm
Ho,rW IN Douglas JcrolPS Shilling Magazine.
Who is it that mourns for the days that arc gone,
When a Noble could do as he liked with his own?
When his scris, with their burdens well filled on
their backs,
Mover dared to complain of the weight Of a tax?
when his word was a statute, his nod was a law,
And for auaht but his "ordcr" he cared not IA
straw?
When each had his dungeon and racks for the
Poor,
And gibbct to hang II refractory boor?
Thcv were DAYS when man with II Thought in
his pate,
Was a man that was born for the popular hate;
And if I we're thought that was good for his
kind,
The man was too vile to be left unconfncd;
The DAYS when obedience in right or in wrong,
Was always the sermon and always the song
When the People, like cattle, were pounded or
driven
And to scourgc them was thought Kings license
from Heaven.
They were days when the Sword settled questions
of right,
And falschood was first to monopolizo might;
When the fighter Of battles was always odorcd,
And the greater the tyrant the dcaror the lord;
When the King, who, by myriads, could number
his slain,
Was considered by far the most worthy to reign;
When the fate of the multitude hung on his
BREATH
4 god in his life and a saint in his death.
They were days when the headsman was always
prepared
The block ever roady-thc axe ever barred;
When a corpse on the gibbct aye swung to and fro,
And the fire at the stake never smouldered too
low;
When fnmnc and age made a woman a witch,
10 lie roasted alive, or be drowned in II ditch;
When difference of creed was the yilest of crime,
And martyrs were burned half score at time
They were days when the gallows stood black in
the way,
Tho larger the town the moro plentiful they;
When Law never dreamed it was good to rclcnt
Or thought it less wisdom to kill than prevents
When Justice herself taking Law for her guide,
Was never oppcascd till victim had died;
And the stealcr Of sheep, and the slayer Of men,
were strung up together again and again.
They were days when the crowd had no freedom
of speech,
And reading and writing were out Of its reach
When Ignorance, stolid and dense, was its doom,
And Bigotry swathcd it from cradle to tomb,
When the Few thought the Many were workers
for them
70 use them, and when they had used, to contemn
And the Many, poor fools, thought the treatment
their due,
And crawlcd in the dust at the feet Of the Few.
No-thc Present, though clouds DER her counten
ancc roll,
las light in her eyes, and hope in her soul,
And pe are too wise, like the Bigots to mourn,
For the darkness of days that shall never return.
Worn out, and extinct, may their history serve
As beacon to warn us whenc'cr We would
swcrvc;
TO srun the Oppression, the Folly and Crime
That blackcn the page Of the Record of Time.
Their Chiyalry lghtcncd the gloom it is true,
And Honor aud Loyalty dwclt with the Few;
But small was the light and of little avail,
Compared with the blaze of our Press and oul
Raa
Success to that blaze! May it shine over all,
Till Ignorance learn with what grace she may fall
And fly from the world with the sorrow she
wrought
And leave it to Virtue and Freedom of Thought.