An Anti-Slavery Poem (1843)
By JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
THE blast from Freedom’s Northern hills, upon its Southern way, Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:— No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle’s peal, Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen’s steel.
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We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high, Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky; Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor here— No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.
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What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved False to their fathers’ memory—false to the faith they loved; If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn, Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?
We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery’s hateful hell— Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound’s yell— We gather, at your summons, above our fathers’ graves, From Freedom’s holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!
Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow; The spirit of her early time is with her even now; Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister’s slave and tool!
All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day; But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone, And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!
Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God’s free air With woman’s shriek beneath the lash, and manhood’s wild despair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.
Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold— Gloat o’er the new-born child, and count his market value, when The maddened mother’s cry of woe shall pierce the slayer’s den!
Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginian name; Plant, if ye will, your fathers’ graves with rankest weeds of shame; Be, if ye will, the scandal of God’s fair universe— We wash our hands forever, of your sin, and shame, and curse.
A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom’s shrine hath been, Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire’s mountain men: The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.
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And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey Beneath the very shadow of Bunker’s shaft of grey, How, through the free lips of the son, the father’s warning spoke; How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke!
The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters— Deep calling unto deep aloud—the sound of many waters! Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand? No fellers in the Bay Stale! No slave upon her land!
Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn; You’ve spurned our kindest counsels—you’ve hunted for our lives— And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves!
We wage no war—we lift no arm—we fling no torch within The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin; We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and God-like soul of man!
But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given For freedom and humanity, is registered in Heaven; No slave-hunt in our borders—no pirate an our strand! No fetters in the Bay Slate—no slave upon our land!
John Greenleaf Whittier, Massachusetts to Virginia, in his (Boston, 1849), 188–191 passim.