Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison bars,

Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars,

In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night

time,

My grated window whitened with autumn's early rime.

Alone in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by;
Star after star looked palely in, and sank adown the sky;
No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea.

All night I sate unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow,
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!

Oh the weakness of the flesh was there, the shrinking and the shame;

And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came:

'Why sitst thou thus forlornly ?" the wicked murmur said,

"Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed?

"Where be the smiling faces and voices soft and sweet Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street? Where be the youths, whose glances the summer Sabbath through

Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?

Why sitst thou here, Cassandra? Bethink thee with what mirth

Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth; How the crimson shadows tremble, on foreheads white and fair, On eyes of merry girlhood half hid in golden hair.

"Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are spoken;

Not for thee the nuts of Wenham Woods by laughing boys are

broken;

No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid,

For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful rustics braid.

VOL. II.

F

"O weak deluded maiden! by crazy fancies led,

With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread ;

To leave a wholesome worship and teaching pure and sound,

And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth bound.

"Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at things divine,
Who rail against the pulpit and holy bread and wine,
Sore from their cart-tail scourgings and from the pillory lame,
Rejoicing in their wretchedness and glorying in their shame.

"And what a fate awaits thee? a sadly toiling slave,
Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave!
Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall,
The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all!"

Oh!-ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble nature's fears
Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears
I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer,
To feel-oh Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed wert there!

I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell,
And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison shackles fell,
Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's robe of white,
And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.

*

Slow broke the grey cold morning, again the sunshine fell
Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell;
The hoar-frost matted on the wall, and upward from the street
Came careless laugh and idle word and tread of passing feet.

At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was open cast,
And slowly at the sheriff's side up the long street I passed ;
I heard the murmur round me and felt, but dared not see,
How from every door and window the people gazed on me.

We paused at length where at my feet the sunlit waters broke On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock; The merchants' ships lay idly there in hard clear lines on high Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky.

And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped and grave and

cold,

And grim and stout sea-captains, with faces bronzed and old,
And on his horse with Rawson, his cruel clerk at hand,

Sate dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land.

But grey heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read

That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made.
Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring
No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering.

Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff turning said:
"Which of ye worthy seamen will take this Quaker maid?
In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore,
You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor."

Grim and silent stood the captains; and when again he cried,
"Speak out, my worthy seamen !" no voice or sign replied;
But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my

ear

"God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear!"

A weight seemed lifted off my heart—a pitying friend was nigh,
I felt it in his hard rough hand, I saw it in his eye;
And when again the sheriff spake, that voice so kind to me
Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea.

"Pile my ship with bars of silver-pack with coins of Spanish gold

From keelpiece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold, By the living God who made me! I would sooner in yon bay Sink ship and crew and cargo than bear this child away !”

"Well answered, worthy captain; shame on their cruel laws!” Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's just applause.

"Like the herdsman of Tekoa in Israel of old

Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ?"

I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half-way drawn, Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn; Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back,

And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track.

Hard after them the sheriff looked in bitterness of soul,

Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment roll;

"Good friends," he said, "since both have fled, the ruler and the priest,

Judge ye if from their further work I be not well released."

Loud was the cheer, which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay,

As with kind words and kinder looks he bade me go my way;
For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen
And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men.

Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed beneath my eye,

A holier wonder round me rose, the blue walls of the sky,
A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and woodland lay,
And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay.

Thanksgiving to the Lord of life! to Him all praises be,
Who from the hands of evil men hath set His handmaid free!
All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid
Who takes the crafty in the maze which for the poor is laid!

*

I add the opening stanzas of an equally powerful and eloquent poem, with the few lines of explanation prefixed by the author.

MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk (Virginia) in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, the result

of whose case in Massachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro, Somerset, in England, in 1772.

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.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go-
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports upon their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

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 labour here; No hewer of our mountain oak suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves that lash the reefs along St. George's bank, Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank; Through storm and wave and blinding mist stout are the hearts which man

The fishing-smacks of Marble Head, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms Bent grimly o'er their straining-lines, or wrestling with the storms;

Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,

They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day.
When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array?
How, side by side with sons of her's, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis then?

Forgets she how the Bay States, in answer to the call
Of her old House of Burgesses spoke out from Fanueil Hall?
When echoing back her Henry's cry, came pealing on each breath
Of northern winds the thrilling sounds of " Liberty or Death!"