The Shasta courier., 1859-06-04
Written for The Shasta Courier.
THE PLAGUE.

4
Oh the Plague is rolling on usl
oh, the Pestilence has won us
Ruin, want and desoiation,
Outrage, shame and degradation,
Wrong and injury unspoken,
Right denied and honor broken,
Fraud unholy, crime surprising,
Hope destroying, virtue blasting,
Gather like the gathering thunder,-
Gather like the flaming levin
Gathers in the frowning heaven
In the dust to crush US under.
Lo sec the terrors gather
Far beyond the silent water,
In the Oriental regions
By the mocker named Celestial
Where are seen the swarming legions,
Bought and sold lik creatures bestial,
Toll and blood to thankless lavish,
Slavish tools to lords as slavish,
Libels foul on human nature,
Pawns in life's triumphant battle,
Dwarfed in mind and dwarfed in stature,
Bled and slain like soulless cattle
Nameless, shameless, british chattels,-
This the scourge whose terrors gather
Far beyond the silent water,-
Gather like the gathering thunder,
Gather like the flaming levin
Gathers in the flaming heaven
Lol I mark its threat'ning motion,
Like some monster, grim and horrid-
Outward from its regions torrid,
Where the day-god fiercest blazes,
Where the sons of Moloch rerel,
Sweeps this sesthing, noisome devil
Leaving foul and black its traces
On the oceans silvery level;
Dragon-winged and fury-laden,
Laden with its cargo ghastly,
Hideous, vile, disgusting, beastly,
Sordid, groveling, noxious, craven,
Sweeping onward to its haven
Sweeping to its happy Alden.
Oh, the Plague is fallen on us
Oh, the Pestilence has won us
Ger the sea its form is sweeping,
Ger the land its taint is creeping
Foul its stain is on the water;
On the shore its terrors gather;
In its touch is degradation,
In its track is desolation;
In the city's byways seething,
Where in infamy it nurtures;
Lost to shame and dead to virtue;
Pestilence and horror breathing
Spreading its contamination
Ger the surface of the nation;
Here its tread defiles the mountain,
There its presence soils the fountain
By the hill and by the river,
Rise its noxious odors ever
Rising, like deadly vapor,
Ger the rights and hopes of Laborl
Failing, like the furious spoiler,
On the promise of the Toilerl
Gorging, like some hideous demon,
On the living blood of Freemen
Shutting out, in gloom and sorrow,
El Dorado's coming morrow.
Oh, the Plague is fallen on us
Oh, the Pestilence has won US!
Sons Of Labor-toiling masses
Heirs to freedom and to glory
Will you stem this raging torrent?
WIN you quell this scourge toat blasts U
Rise! your course is plain before you.
Natures voice proclaims your warrant
Burst these sIavish bonds asunder
Rise, and speak in tones of thunder
Nor let speech alone suffice you.
IT the vropger still denies you,
/" "Action, action P shall restore You.
'Tis the conflict of the spoiler,
Shifting once again the toilerl
'Tis the strife of ill-got booty,
Smothering out the calls of duty
Where the laws distorted letters
Justice bind in gilded fetters,
Where, to shun the charge of treason,
Blood must seal the claims of Reason
Rise
BY thy fathers sacred story,
BY thine own and country's glory,
BY the womb that nurs'd and bore thee,
By the children whom thou rearest,
By the hopes thy heart holds dearest,
By thy hearthstone and thine altar,
RISE no more to doubt or falter
Lo J the Scourge, whose terrors writhe
Thou MUST STEM, OR SINK BENEATH 1T
EQUINE Cry, June, 1859.