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 No word of haughty challenging, nor battle-bugle's peal, Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemens' steel. No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go- And to the land-breeze of our ports upon their errands far, We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high, Wild are the waves that lash the reefs along St. George's bank, The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call Of her old House of Burgesses spoke out from Fanueil Hall? What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved We hunt your bondmen flying from slavery's hateful hell- From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves! Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow, The spirit of her early time is with her even now; Dream not because her pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool! All that a Sister State should be, all that a free State may, But that one dark lothsome burthen, ye must stagger with alone, If slavery be a reproach, and too just a reproach it is to the Southern States, surely the citizens of New England may justly pride themselves upon the poetry which has arisen out of the sin and shame of their brethren. Time will inevitably chase away the crime, for national crimes are in their very nature transient, while the noble effusions that sprang from that foul source, whether in the verse of the poet, or the speeches of the orator, are imperishable. Another of my sins of omission is Mr. Halleck, a poet of a different stamp, with less of earnestness and fire, but more of grace and melody. How musical are these stanzas on the Music of Nature! Young thoughts have music in them, love And happiness their theme; And music wanders in the wind That lulls a morning dream. And there are angel voices heard There's music in the forest leaves And in the laugh of forest girls The first wild bird, that drinks the dew Has music in his voice, and in The fluttering of his wing. There's music in the dash of waves When the swift bark cleaves the foam; When moon and starbeams smiling meet To-day the forest leaves are green, And the maiden's laugh be changed ere long The answer is a silent one More eloquent than words. The moonlight music of the waves When the living lightning mocks the wreck * Still better than these verses are the stanzas on the death of his brother poet Drake : Green be the turf above thee, Tears fell when thou wert dying, When hearts whose truth was proven There should a wreath be woven And I, who woke each morrow It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow; But I've in vain essayed it, While memory bids me weep thee That mourns a man like thee. This is a true and manly record of a true and manly friendship. There is no doubting the sorrow, honorable alike to the Departed and the Survivor. May he be so loved and so mourned ! XXVII. VOLUMINOUS AUTHORS. HARGRAVE'S STATE TRIALS. ALL my life long I have delighted in voluminous works; in other words, I have delighted in that sort of detail which permits so intimate a familiarity with the subjects of which it treats. This fancy of mine seems most opposed to the spirit of an age fertile in abridgments and selections. And yet my taste is hardly, perhaps, so singular as it seems: witness the six volume biographies of Scott and Southey, which every body wishes as long again as they are; witness the voluminous histories of single events—the Conquest of Peru and of Mexico, by Mr. Prescott, the French Revolution of M. Thiers, the Girondins of M. de Lamartine. Even the most successful writers of modern fiction have found the magical effects of bringing the public into intimacy with their heroes. Hence Mr. Cooper (dead I regret to say, but yet imperishably alive in his graphic novels), extended to fifteen volumes the adventures of Leather-Stocking, until every reader offered his hand to greet the honest backwoodsman as if he had been a daily visitor; and Balzac, a still greater artist, brought the same dramatis persona, the same set of walking ladies and gentlemen to fill up the background of his scenes of the "Life of Paris and of the Provinces," with an illusion so perfect and so masterly, that I myself, who ought to have some acquaintance with the artifices of story-telling, was so completely deceived as to inquire by letter of the friend who had introduced me to those remarkable books, whether the Horace Bianchon, whom I had just found consulted for the twentieth time in some grave malady, were a make-believe physician, or a real living man to which my friend, herself no novice in this sort of deception, replied that he was certainly a fictitious personage, for that she had written two years ago to Paris to ask the same question. |