"_If_ mutely the slave will endure and obey,
"Nor clanking his fetters nor breathing his pains,
"His masters _perhaps_ at some far distant day
"May _think_ (tender tyrants!) of loosening his chains."
Wise "if" and "perhaps!"--precious salve for our wounds,
If he who would rule thus o'er manacled mutes,
Could check the free spring-tide of Mind that resounds,
Even now at his feet, like the sea at Canute's.
But, no, 'tis in vain--the grand impulse is given--
Man knows his high Charter, and knowing will claim;
And if ruin _must_ follow where fetters are riven,
Be theirs who have forged them the guilt and the shame.
"_If_ the slave will be silent!"--vain Soldier, beware--
There _is_ a dead silence the wronged may assume,
When the feeling, sent back from the lips in despair,
But clings round the heart with a deadlier gloom;--
When the blush that long burned on the suppliant's cheek,
Gives place to the avenger's pale, resolute hue;
And the tongue that once threatened, disdaining to _speak_,
Consigns to the arm the high office--to _do_.
_If_ men in that silence should think of the hour
When proudly their fathers in panoply stood,
Presenting alike a bold front-work of power
To the despot on land and the foe on the flood:--
That hour when a Voice had come forth from the west,
To the slave bringing hopes, to the tyrant alarms;
And a lesson long lookt for was taught the opprest,
That kings are as dust before freemen in arms!
_If_, awfuller still, the mute slave should recall
That dream of his boyhood, when Freedom's sweet day
At length seemed to break thro' a long night of thrall,
And Union and Hope went abroad in its ray;--
_If_ Fancy should tell him, that Dayspring of Good,
Tho' swiftly its light died away from his chain,
Tho' darkly it set in a nation's best blood,
Now wants but invoking to shine out again;
_If--if_, I say--breathings like these should come o'er
The chords of remembrance, and thrill as they come,
Then,--_perhaps_--ay, _perhaps_--but I dare not say more;
Thou hast willed that thy slaves should be mute--I am dumb.
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