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 goAround 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 oaks 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 ?