Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-06-25
IFron the Atlantic Monthly for July
DEATH OF SLAVERY.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

0 Thou great Wrong, that, through the slew
Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst WELD
The soourge that drove the laborer to the field,
And looked with stony eye on human tears,
Thy cruel reign is Ger;
Thy bOndmen crouch DO more
In menace at the terror of thins eye;
For he who marks the bounds of guilty power,
Long suffering, hath heard the captive's cry,
And touched his shackles at the appointed hour
And To- they fall, and he whose limbs they CALLED
Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled-
A shout OF JOY from the redeemed is sent
Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn Of thanks,
Our rivers roll e~Nulting, and their banks
Send up hosannas to the armament.
Fields, where the b~ondsman's toll
Nc more shall reach the soil,
Seem now to bask in a serener day
The meadow birds sing sweeter, and the airs
OF heaven with more caressing softness play,
Welcoming nan to liberty like theirs.
A glory clothes the land from sea to sea,
For the great laud and all its coasts are free.
Within that land vert thou enthroned of late,
Aud they by whom the nations laws were made,
And they who filled its judgment-sSats, Obeyed
Thy mandite, rigid as the will of fate
Fierce men at thy right hand,
With gesture of ommand
Gave forth the word that none might dare gsinsay,
And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not
Shrsnk from thy presence, and in blank dismay
ChOked down, unuttered. the rebelliOus thought;
While mesner towards, mingling with thy train,
Proved, from the book Of God, thy right TO reign.
Great as thou vert, and feared from shore TO shore
The wrath of God O'ertoCk thee in thy pride;
Thou sit'st a chastity shadow by thy side
Thy once strong arms hang neTyeless yeTmore
AMI they who quailed but now
Before thy lowering brow
Devote thy memory to scorn and shame,
And scof at the pale, poEerless thing thou art.
And they who ruled in they imperial name,
Subdued, and standing sullenly apart,
Soowl at the hands that overthrow thy reign,
And shattered at q blow the prisoners chain.
Well, was thy doom deserved thou didst not spare
Life's teRderest ties, but cruelty didst part
Husband and wife, and from the mother heart
Didst wrest her children, deaf to shrek and prayer;
Thy inner lair became
The haunt Of guilty shame;
Thy lash dropped blood the murderer at thy side,
Showed his red hand, nor feared the vengeance
Thou didst sow earth with crimes, and far and
wide,
\ har,e est Of amounted miseries grew,
Until the measure ef thy sins at last
Was full, and then the s~yeDging bolt was cast.
Go then, sccursed of God, and take thy place
With baleful memories Of the elder time,
With many n wasting pest, and nameless crime,
And bloody war that thinned the human race;
With the Black Death, whose way
Through waiIing cities lay,
Worship Of Moloch, tyrsnnies that built
The Pyramids, and cruel deeds that taught
To ayenge a fanoied guilt by deeper guilt
Death at the stake to those thatheld them not.
Lo the foul phAntOms, silent in the gloom
OF the flown ages, part to yield thee room.
l see the better years that hasten by,
Carry thee back into the shadOwy past,
Where, in the dusty syaoes void and vast,
The graves Of those whom thou hast murdered lie.
The slave-pen, through whose door
Thy victims pass no more,
l. there, and there shall the grim block remain
At which the slave was sold;
Scourges and engines of restraint and pain
Mouider and rust by thine eternal seat.
There, mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes,
Dwell thou, o warning to the coming time.