Addressed to the Patrons of the Pennsylvania Freeman

THE wave is breaking on the shore,The echo fading from the chimeAgain the shadow moveth o'erThe dial-plate of time!

O seer-seen Angel! waiting nowWith weary feet on sea and shore,Impatient for the last dread vowThat time shall be no more!

Once more across thy sleepless eyeThe semblance of a smile has passed:The year departing leaves more nighTime's fearfullest and last.

Oh, in that dying year hath beenThe sum of all since time began;The birth and death, the joy and pain,Of Nature and of Man.

Spring, with her change of sun and shower,And streams released from Winter's chain,And bursting bud, and opening flower,And greenly growing grain;

And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm,And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed,And voices in her rising storm;God speaking from His cloud!

And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves,And soft, warm days of golden light,The glory of her forest leaves,And harvest-moon at night;

And Winter with her leafless grove,And prisoned stream, and drifting snow,The brilliance of her heaven aboveAnd of her earth below;

And man, in whom an angel's mindWith earth's low instincts finds abode,The highest of the links which bindBrute nature to her God;

His infant eye bath seen the light,His childhood's merriest laughter rung,And active sports to manlier mightThe nerves of boyhood strung!

And quiet love, and passion's fires,Have soothed or burned in manhood's breast,And lofty aims and low desiresBy turns disturbed his rest.

The wailing of the newly-bornHas mingled with the funeral knell;And o'er the dying's ear has goneThe merry marriage-bell.

And Wealth has filled his halls with mirth,While Want, in many a humble shed,Toiled, shivering by her cheerless hearth,The live-long night for bread.

And worse than all, the human slave,The sport of lust, and pride, and scorn!Plucked off the crown his Maker gave,His regal manhood gone!

Oh, still, my country! o'er thy plains,Blackened with slavery's blight and ban,That human chattel drags his chains,An uncreated man!

And still, where'er to sun and breeze,My country, is thy flag unrolled,With scorn, the gazing stranger seesA stain on every fold.

Oh, tear the gorgeous emblem down!It gathers scorn from every eye,And despots smile and good men frownWhene'er it passes by.

Shame! shame! its starry splendors glowAbove the slaver's loathsome jail;Its folds are ruffling even nowHis crimson flag of sale.

Still round our country's proudest hallThe trade in human flesh is driven,And at each careless hammer-fallA human heart is riven.

And this, too, sanctioned by the menVested with power to shield the right,And throw each vile and robber denWide open to the light.

Yet, shame upon them! there they sit,Men of the North, subdued and still;Meek, pliant poltroons, only fitTo work a master's will.

Sold, bargained off for Southern votes,A passive herd of Northern mules,Just braying through their purchased throatsWhate'er their owner rules.

And he, (2) the basest of the base,The vilest of the vile, whose name,Embalmed in infinite disgrace,Is deathless in its shame!

A tool, to bolt the people's doorAgainst the people clamoring there,An ass, to trample on their floorA people's right of prayer!

Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast,Self-pilloried to the public view,A mark for every passing blastOf scorn to whistle through;

There let him hang, and hear the boastOf Southrons o'er their pliant tool,--A new Stylites on his post,"Sacred to ridicule!"

Look we at home! our noble hall,To Freedom's holy purpose given,Now rears its black and ruined wall,Beneath the wintry heaven,

Telling the story of its doom,The fiendish mob, the prostrate law,The fiery jet through midnight's gloom,Our gazing thousands saw.

Look to our State! the poor man's rightTorn from him: and the sons of thoseWhose blood in Freedom's sternest fightSprinkled the Jersey snows,

Outlawed within the land of Penn,That Slavery's guilty fears might cease,And those whom God created menToil on as brutes in peace.

Yet o'er the blackness of the stormA bow of promise bends on high,And gleams of sunshine, soft and warm,Break through our clouded sky.East, West, and North, the shout is heard,

Of freemen rising for the rightEach valley hath its rallying word,Each hill its signal light.

O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray,The strengthening light of freedom shines,Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay,And Vermont's snow-hung pines!

From Hudson's frowning palisadesTo Alleghany's laurelled crest,O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades,It shines upon the West.

Speed on the light to those who dwellIn Slavery's land of woe and sin,And through the blackness of that bell,Let Heaven's own light break in.

So shall the Southern conscience quakeBefore that light poured full and strong,So shall the Southern heart awakeTo all the bondman's wrong.

And from that rich and sunny landThe song of grateful millions rise,Like that of Israel's ransomed bandBeneath Arabia's skies:

And all who now are bound beneathOur banner's shade, our eagle's wing,From Slavery's night of moral deathTo light and life shall spring.

Broken the bondman's chain, and goneThe master's guilt, and hate, and fear,And unto both alike shall dawnA New and Happy Year.