Held in London in 1840

Joseph Sturge, the founder of the British and Foreign Anti-SlaverySociety, proposed the calling of a world's anti-slavery convention, andthe proposal was promptly seconded by the American Anti-Slavery Society.The call was addressed to "friends of the slave of every nation and ofevery clime."

YES, let them gather! Summon forthThe pledged philanthropy of Earth.From every land, whose hills have heardThe bugle blast of Freedom waking;Or shrieking of her symbol-birdFrom out his cloudy eyrie breakingWhere Justice hath one worshipper,Or truth one altar built to her;

Where'er a human eye is weepingO'er wrongs which Earth's sad children know;Where'er a single heart is keepingIts prayerful watch with human woeThence let them come, and greet each other,And know in each a friend and brother!

Yes, let them come! from each green valeWhere England's old baronial hallsStill bear upon their storied wallsThe grim crusader's rusted mail,Battered by Paynim spear and brandOn Malta's rock or Syria's sand!And mouldering pennon-staves once setWithin the soil of Palestine,By Jordan and Gennesaret;Or, borne with England's battle line,O'er Acre's shattered turrets stooping,Or, midst the camp their banners drooping,With dews from hallowed Hermon wet,A holier summons now is givenThan that gray hermit's voice of old,Which unto all the winds of heavenThe banners of the Cross unrolled!Not for the long-deserted shrine;Not for the dull unconscious sod,Which tells not by one lingering signThat there the hope of Israel trod;But for that truth, for which aloneIn pilgrim eyes are sanctifiedThe garden moss, the mountain stone,Whereon His holy sandals pressed,--The fountain which His lip hath blessed,--

Whate'er hath touched His garment's hemAt Bethany or Bethlehem,Or Jordan's river-side.For Freedom in the name of HimWho came to raise Earth's drooping poor,To break the chain from every limb,The bolt from every prison door!For these, o'er all the earth hath passedAn ever-deepening trumpet blast,As if an angel's breath had lentIts vigor to the instrument.

And Wales, from Snowden's mountain wall,Shall startle at that thrilling call,As if she heard her bards again;And Erin's "harp on Tara's wall"Give out its ancient strain,Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withal,--The melody which Erin loves,When o'er that harp, 'mid bursts of gladnessAnd slogan cries and lyke-wake sadness,The hand of her O'Connell moves!Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill,And mountain hold, and heathery bill,Shall catch and echo back the note,As if she heard upon the airOnce more her Cameronian's prayerAnd song of Freedom float.And cheering echoes shall replyFrom each remote dependency,Where Britain's mighty sway is known,In tropic sea or frozen zone;Where'er her sunset flag is furling,Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curling;From Indian Bengal's groves of palmAnd rosy fields and gales of balm,Where Eastern pomp and power are rolledThrough regal Ava's gates of gold;And from the lakes and ancient woodsAnd dim Canadian solitudes,Whence, sternly from her rocky throne,Queen of the North, Quebec looks down;And from those bright and ransomed IslesWhere all unwonted Freedom smiles,And the dark laborer still retainsThe scar of slavery's broken chains!

From the hoar Alps, which sentinelThe gateways of the land of Tell,Where morning's keen and earliest glanceOn Jura's rocky wall is thrown,And from the olive bowers of FranceAnd vine groves garlanding the Rhone,--"Friends of the Blacks," as true and triedAs those who stood by Oge's side,And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong,Shall gather at that summons strong;Broglie, Passy, and he whose songBreathed over Syria's holy sod,And, in the paths which Jesus trod,And murmured midst the hills which hemCrownless and sad Jerusalem,Hath echoes whereso'er the toneOf Israel's prophet-lyre is known.

Still let them come; from Quito's walls,And from the Orinoco's tide,From Lima's Inca-haunted halls,From Santa Fe and Yucatan,--Men who by swart Guerrero's sideProclaimed the deathless rights of man,Broke every bond and fetter off,And hailed in every sable serfA free and brother Mexican!Chiefs who across the Andes' chainHave followed Freedom's flowing pennon,And seen on Junin's fearful plain,Glare o'er the broken ranks of SpainThe fire-burst of Bolivar's cannon!And Hayti, from her mountain land,Shall send the sons of those who hurledDefiance from her blazing strand,The war-gage from her Petion's hand,Alone against a hostile world.

Nor all unmindful, thou, the while,Land of the dark and mystic Nile!Thy Moslem mercy yet may shameAll tyrants of a Christian name,When in the shade of Gizeh's pile,Or, where, from Abyssinian hillsEl Gerek's upper fountain fills,Or where from Mountains of the MoonEl Abiad bears his watery boon,Where'er thy lotus blossoms swimWithin their ancient hallowed waters;Where'er is beard the Coptic hymn,Or song of Nubia's sable daughters;The curse of slavery and the crime,Thy bequest from remotest time,At thy dark Mehemet's decreeForevermore shall pass from thee;And chains forsake each captive's limbOf all those tribes, whose hills aroundHave echoed back the cymbal soundAnd victor horn of Ibrahim.

And thou whose glory and whose crimeTo earth's remotest bound and clime,In mingled tones of awe and scorn,The echoes of a world have borne,My country! glorious at thy birth,A day-star flashing brightly forth,The herald-sign of Freedom's dawn!Oh, who could dream that saw thee then,And watched thy rising from afar,That vapors from oppression's fenWould cloud the upward tending star?Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which heard,Awe-struck, the shout which hailed thy dawning,Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and king,To mock thee with their welcoming,Like Hades when her thrones were stirredTo greet the down-cast Star of Morning!"Aha! and art thou fallen thus?Art thou become as one of us?"

Land of my fathers! there will stand,Amidst that world-assembled band,Those owning thy maternal claimUnweakened by thy, crime and shame;The sad reprovers of thy wrong;The children thou hast spurned so long.

Still with affection's fondest yearningTo their unnatural mother turning.No traitors they! but tried and leal,Whose own is but thy general weal,Still blending with the patriot's zealThe Christian's love for human kind,To caste and climate unconfined.

A holy gathering! peaceful allNo threat of war, no savage callFor vengeance on an erring brother!But in their stead the godlike planTo teach the brotherhood of manTo love and reverence one another,As sharers of a common blood,The children of a common GodYet, even at its lightest word,Shall Slavery's darkest depths be stirred:Spain, watching from her Moro's keepHer slave-ships traversing the deep,And Rio, in her strength and pride,Lifting, along her mountain-side,Her snowy battlements and towers,Her lemon-groves and tropic bowers,With bitter hate and sullen fearIts freedom-giving voice shall hear;And where my country's flag is flowing,On breezes from Mount Vernon blowing,Above the Nation's council halls,Where Freedom's praise is loud and long,While close beneath the outward wallsThe driver plies his reeking thong;The hammer of the man-thief falls,O'er hypocritic cheek and browThe crimson flush of shame shall glowAnd all who for their native landAre pledging life and heart and hand,Worn watchers o'er her changing weal,Who fog her tarnished honor feel,Through cottage door and council-hallShall thunder an awakening call.The pen along its page shall burnWith all intolerable scorn;An eloquent rebuke shall goOn all the winds that Southward blow;From priestly lips, now sealed and dumb,Warning and dread appeal shall come,Like those which Israel heard from him,The Prophet of the Cherubim;Or those which sad Esaias hurledAgainst a sin-accursed world!Its wizard leaves the Press shall flingUnceasing from its iron wing,With characters inscribed thereon,As fearful in the despot's ballAs to the pomp of BabylonThe fire-sign on the palace wall!

And, from her dark iniquities,Methinks I see my country riseNot challenging the nations roundTo note her tardy justice done;Her captives from their chains unbound;Her prisons opening to the sunBut tearfully her arms extendingOver the poor and unoffending;Her regal emblem now no longer

A bird of prey, with talons reeking,Above the dying captive shrieking,But, spreading out her ample wing,A broad, impartial covering,The weaker sheltered by the strongerOh, then to Faith's anointed eyesThe promised token shall be given;And on a nation's sacrifice,Atoning for the sin of years,And wet with penitential tears,The fire shall fall from Heaven!