The Branded Hand

WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thythoughtful brow and gray,And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day;With that front of calm endurance, on whosesteady nerve in vainPressed the iron of the prison, smote the fieryshafts of pain.

Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutalcravens aimTo make God's truth thy falsehood, His holiestwork thy shame?When, all blood-quenched, from the torture theiron was withdrawn,How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools toscorn!

They change to wrong the duty which God hathwritten outOn the great heart of humanity, too legible fordoubt!They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched fromfootsole up to crown,Give to shame what God hath given unto honorand renown!

Why, that brand is highest honor! than its tracesnever yetUpon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazonset;And thy unborn generations, as they tread ourrocky strand,Shall tell with pride the story of their father'sbranded hand!

As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back-from Syrian warsThe scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars,The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span,So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend ofGod and man.

He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave,Thou for His living presence in the bound andbleeding slave;He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod,Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God.

For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whipo'er him swung,From the tortured truths of freedom the lie ofslavery wrung,And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God-deserted shrine,Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured thebondman's blood for wine;

While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviourknelt,And spurned, the while, the temple where a presentSaviour dwelt;Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prisonshadows dim,And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him!

In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above andwave below,Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babblingschoolmen know;God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angelsonly can,That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope ofheaven is Man!

That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of lawand creed,In the depth of God's great goodness may findmercy in his need;But woe to him who crushes the soul with chainand rod,And herds with lower natures the awful form of God!

Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughmanof the wave!Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation tothe Slave!"Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whosoreads may feelHis heart swell strong within him, his sinewschange to steel.

Hold it up before our sunshine, up against ourNorthern air;Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God,look there!Take it henceforth for your standard, like theBruce's heart of yore,In the dark strife closing round ye, let that handbe seen before!

And the masters of the slave-land shall tremble atthat sign,When it points its finger Southward along thePuritan lineCan the craft of State avail them? Can a Christlesschurch withstand,In the van of Freedom's onset, the coming of thatband?