Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-10-11
PRAYER OF PLACIDO.

God Of unbounded love and power eternal
To thee 1 turn in darkness and despair;
Stretch forth thine arm, and, from the brow in
fernal
OF Calumny, the veil of Justice tear;
And, from the forehead of my honest fame,
Pluck the worlds brand of infauy and shame
0 King of kings, my fathers God, who only
Art strong to save, by whom is all controlled;
Who giv'st the sea its waves, the dark and lonely
Abyss of Heaven its light, the North its cold,
The air currents, the warm sun its beams,
Life to the flowers, and motion to the streams =
All things obey thee, dying or reviving
As thou commandest all, part from thee,
From thee alone their life and power deriving
Sink and are lost in vast eternity
Yet doth the void obey thee, since from nought
This marvellous being by thy hand was wrought.
0 merciful God cannot shun thy presence;
For, through its veil of flesh, thy piercing eve
Looketh upon my spirits unsoiled essence,
As through the pure transparence Of the sky.
Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands,
AS DER my PROSTATE innocence he stands!
But if, alas it seemeth good to thee
That l should perish as the guilty dies:
That my cold, mangled corse my foes should sec
With hateful malice and exulting eyes,
Speak thou the word, and bid them shed my blood
Fully in me thy will be done, o Colds
On arriving at the fatal spot, be sat down. as or
dered, on a bench, with his back to the soldiers.
The multitude recOllected that, in some affecting
lines written by the conspiratOr in prison, he had
said that it would be useless to seek to kill him bv
shooting his body,--that his heart must be pierced
ere it would cease its throbbings. AT the last mo-
ment, just as the soldiers were about to fire. he
rose up, and gaZed for an instant, around and
above him, on the beautiful capital of his native
land and it, sailHecked bay, on the dense crowds
about him, the blue mountains in the distance, and
the sky glorious with the SKINNER sunshine
'Adios, mundo! Farewell, worldly he said calm,
ly, and sat down. The word was given, and five
balls entered his body. Then it was, that, amidsI
the groans and murmurs of the horror-stricker
spectators, he rose up once more, and turned hii
head to the shuddering soldiers, his face wearing
an expression of superhuman courage. viii Nc
one pity me-? he said, laying his hand over hii
heart. Here! fire here" While he yet spake, two
balls entered his heart, and he fell dead. Thu,
persisted the hero-poet Of Cuba. He has not fall
len in vain. His genius and his heroic death vii
doubtless be regarded by his race as precious lega
cles. 10 the great names Of LOuverture and Pc
ton, the colored man can now add that of Juan
Placido.
The following remarkable lines were written on
the wall of Placido's prison the day before his exc.
cution:-
% Liberty! | sigh for thee
To break this chain and dungeon bar:
| hear thy spirit calling me,
Deep in the frozen North afar,
With voice like Gods and yisage like a star.
Long Graded on the mountain wind.
Thy mates the eagle and the storm,
Arise, and from thy brow unbind
"see Voices from Prison; a Selection Of Poetry written within
the Cell, by various prigonera VIII, -" tH