BURIAL OF BARBER.
Reading edition
Thomas Barber was shot December 6, 1855, near Lawrence, Kansas.
BEAR him, comrades, to his grave; Never over one more brave Shall the prairie grasses weep, In the ages yet to come, When the millions in our room, What we sow in tears, shall reap.
Bear him up the icy hill, With the Kansas, frozen still As his noble heart, below, And the land he came to till With a freeman's thews and will, And his poor hut roofed with snow.
One more look of that dead face, Of his murder's ghastly trace! One more kiss, O widowed one Lay your left hands on his brow, Lift your right hands up, and vow That his work shall yet be done.
Patience, friends! The eye of God Every path by Murder trod Watches, lidless, day and night; And the dead man in his shroud, And his widow weeping loud, And our hearts, are in His sight.
Every deadly threat that swells With the roar of gambling hells, Every brutal jest and jeer, Every wicked thought and plan Of the cruel heart of man, Though but whispered, He can hear!
We in suffering, they in crime, Wait the just award of time, Wait the vengeance that is due; Not in vain a heart shall break, Not a tear for Freedom's sake Fall unheeded: God is true.
While the flag with stars bedecked Threatens where it should protect, And the Law shakes Hands with Crime, What is left us but to wait, Match our patience to our fate, And abide the better time?
Patience, friends! The human heart Everywhere shall take our part, Everywhere for us shall pray; On our side are nature's laws, And God's life is in the cause That we suffer for to-day.
Well to suffer is divine; Pass the watchword down the line, Pass the countersign: "Endure." Not to him who rashly dares, But to him who nobly bears, Is the victor's garland sure.
Frozen earth to frozen breast, Lay our slain one down to rest; Lay him down in hope and faith, And above the broken sod, Once again, to Freedom's God, Pledge ourselves for life or death,
That the State whose walls we lay, In our blood and tears, to-day, Shall be free from bonds of shame, And our goodly land untrod By the feet of Slavery, shod With cursing as with flame!
Plant the Buckeye on his grave, For the hunter of the slave In its shadow cannot rest; I And let martyr mound and tree Be our pledge and guaranty Of the freedom of the West! 1856.
TO PENNSYLVANIA. O STATE prayer-founded! never hung Such choice upon a people's tongue, Such power to bless or ban, As that which makes thy whisper Fate, For which on thee the centuries wait, And destinies of man!
Across thy Alleghanian chain, With groanings from a land in pain, The west-wind finds its way: Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood The crying of thy children's blood Is in thy ears to-day!
And unto thee in Freedom's hour Of sorest need God gives the power To ruin or to save; To wound or heal, to blight or bless With fertile field or wilderness, A free home or a grave!
Then let thy virtue match the crime, Rise to a level with the time; And, if a son of thine Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like For Fatherland and Freedom strike As Justice gives the sign.
Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease, The great occasion's forelock seize; And let the north-wind strong, And golden leaves of autumn, be Thy coronal of Victory And thy triumphal song. 10th me., 1856.