Lines

At the Portals of the Future,

Full of madness, guilt and gloom,

Stood the hateful form of Slavery,

Crying, Give, Oh! give me room–

Room to smite the earth with cursing,

Room to scatter, rend and slay,

From the trembling mother’s bosom

Room to tear her child away;

Room to trample on the manhood

Of the country far and wide;

Room to spread o’er every Eden

Slavery’s scorching lava-tide.

Pale and trembling stood the Future,

Quailing ‘neath his frown of hate,

As he grasped with bloody clutches

The great keys of Doom and Fate.

In his hand he held a banner

All festooned with blood and tears:

‘Twas a fearful ensign, woven

With the grief and wrong of years.