[From the Genius of Universal Emancipation]

LAMENT.

            Wo for our country’s guilt!

The glory has departed from her brow,

And shame and infamy are round her now;

            The blood her hand hath spilt,

Cries out against her from the smoking plain,

Yet warm and reeking with the crimson stain.

            The shame of broken faith,

Of solemn treaties turn’d to mockery,

And the pledge of friendship made a lie,

            And unregarded breath—

This blot is resting on her tainted name.

A mildew to the brightness of her fame.

            Wo to the forest sons!

Whom she hath cast into their brother’s hand

To be thrust forth and wanderers o’er the land,

            They and their little ones,

Their mothers and their wives, amidst the wild

To bear the thought how fair their lost home smiled.

            They leaned in their deep trust,

Upon her solemn vows, and found too late,

In their crushed hopes, and their most bitter fate,

            Her oaths were as the dust;

Her seeming friendship but a mask to hide

Her ingrate perfidy, her guilty pride.

            Wo for the dark brow’d slave!

Bow’d to the dust ‘neath her relentless hand,

And stamped with foul oppression’s hateful brand,

            He passes to the grave,

Before the Judgment Seat of Heaven to bear

The tale of all his wrongs, and his despair,

            Alas! alas, for her!

How can she bear the searching eye of God,

Bent in its justice on her crimson sod—

            She, a vile murderer?

How dare she lift her hand to heaven and pray,

Till she hath cast her cherish’d sins away!

            Yet how with pealing shout,

And cannons’ roar, the trump and deep-voiced bells,

Of her own glory to the world she tells!

            Ah! better would it suit

Her cheek, instead of the proud flush it wears,

To be washed pale with penitential tears!

                                                GERTRUDE.