AFTER THE VICTORIES

Our weak hands from desolate brows;
With a deadlier pain in our spirits,
́O'er whose failure no promise arose !

Shook the innermost being of justice,
Stirred the innermost pulse of our God;
With a cry of remonstrance whose anguish
Frighted devils and saints from its road!
All the pain of a long-martyred nation,

All its giant-heart's overtasked strength, -
In one Samson-like throe were unfettered,
Standing up for a hearing at length !

And

even as we fell in the darkness Falling down, with our mouths in the dust; With toil-stained and redly-dyed garments

That betokened us true to our trust,
When the laugh of the scoffer was loudest,
And the clapping of cowardly hands,
A glory blazed out from the Westward,
That startled the far distant lands!

Ha! the wine-press of pain hath been trodden!
Now summon the laborers forth!

Let them come in their redly-dyed garments,
The lion-browed sons of the North!

267

268

OUR UNION.

Not for failure their veins have been leavened
With the vintage of SEVENTY-SIX!
Nor unworthy the blood of our heroes
With its rare olden currents to mix!

Ha! Conquerors! Come ye out boldly,
Full fronting our reverent eyes!
In the might of your glorious manhood,
Ye Saviours of Freedom, arise!
Come out in your sun-ripened grandeur,
Ye victors, who wrestled with wrong!
Come! toil-worn and weary with battle
We greet you with shout and with song!

OUR UNION.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

UR Union, the gift of our fathers! In wrath roars the tempest above! The darker and nearer our danger, The warmer and closer our love; Though stricken, it never shall perish;

It bends, but not breaks, to the blast;

OUR UNION.

Foes rush on in fury to rend it,
But we will be true to the last.

Our Union, ordained by Jehovah, –
Man sets not the fiat aside!
As well cleave the welkin asunder

As the one mighty system divide.
The grand Mississippi sounds ever,
From pine down to palm the decree;
The spindle, the corn, and the cotton,
One pean-shout, Union, to thee !

Our Union, the lightning of battle

First kindled the flame of its shrine ! The blood and the tears of our people Have made it forever divine.

In battle we then will defend it!

Will fight till the triumph is won!

269

Till the States form the realm of the Union As the sky forms the realm of the sun.

270 THE FISHERMAN OF BEAUFORT.

THE FISHERMAN OF BEAUFORT.

BY MRS. FRANCES D. GAGE.

THE tide comes up, and the tide goes down,

And still the fisherman's boat,

At early dawn and at evening shade,
Is ever and ever afloat:

His net goes down, and his net comes up,
And we hear his song of glee :

"De fishes dey hates de ole slave nets,
But comes to de nets of de free."

The tide comes up, and the tide goes down,

And the oysterman below

Is picking away, in the slimy sands,

In the sands ob de long ago.

But now if an empty hand he bears,
He shudders no more with fear,

There's no stretching board for the aching bones,
And no lash of the overseer.

The tide comes up, and the tide goes down,
And ever I hear a song,

As the moaning winds, through the moss-hung oaks,
Sweep surging ever along:

THE FISHERMAN OF BEAUFORT. 271

"O massa white man! help de slave,

And de wife and chillen too;

Eber dey'll work, wid de hard, worn hand,
Ef ell gib 'em de work to do."

The tide comes up, and the tide goes down,
But it bides no tyrant's word,

As it chants unceasing the anthem grand
Of its Freedom, to the Lord.
The fisherman floating on its breast
Has caught up the key-note true :
"De sea works, massa, for 't sef and God,
And so must de brack man too.

"Den gib him* de work, and gib him de pay, For de chillen and wife him love;

And de yam shall grow, and de cotton shall blow,
And him nebber, nebber rove;

For him love de ole Carlina State,
And de ole magnolia-tree :
Oh! nebber him trouble de icy Norf,

Ef de brack folks am go free."

* The colored people use the word "him" for "us," and apply the same pronoun to animate and inanimate objects, whether of masculine, feminine, or neuter gender.