Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete

THE FISHERMEN.

     HURRAH! the seaward breezes
     Sweep down the bay amain;
     Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
     Run up the sail again
     Leave to the lubber landsmen
     The rail-car and the steed;
     The stars of heaven shall guide us,
     The breath of heaven shall speed.

     From the hill-top looks the steeple,
     And the lighthouse from the sand;
     And the scattered pines are waving
     Their farewell from the land.
     One glance, my lads, behind us,
     For the homes we leave one sigh,
     Ere we take the change and chances
     Of the ocean and the sky.

     Now, brothers, for the icebergs
     Of frozen Labrador,
     Floating spectral in the moonshine,
     Along the low, black shore!
     Where like snow the gannet's feathers
     On Brador's rocks are shed,
     And the noisy murr are flying,
     Like black scuds, overhead;

     Where in mist tie rock is hiding,
     And the sharp reef lurks below,
     And the white squall smites in summer,
     And the autumn tempests blow;
     Where, through gray and rolling vapor,
     From evening unto morn,
     A thousand boats are hailing,
     Horn answering unto horn.

     Hurrah! for the Red Island,
     With the white cross on its crown
     Hurrah! for Meccatina,
     And its mountains bare and brown!
     Where the Caribou's tall antlers
     O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss,
     And the footstep of the Mickmack
     Has no sound upon the moss.

     There we'll drop our lines, and gather
     Old Ocean's treasures in,
     Where'er the mottled mackerel
     Turns up a steel-dark fin.
     The sea's our field of harvest,
     Its scaly tribes our grain;
     We'll reap the teeming waters
     As at home they reap the plain.

     Our wet hands spread the carpet,
     And light the hearth of home;
     From our fish, as in the old time,
     The silver coin shall come.
     As the demon fled the chamber
     Where the fish of Tobit lay,
     So ours from all our dwellings
     Shall frighten Want away.

     Though the mist upon our jackets
     In the bitter air congeals,
     And our lines wind stiff and slowly
     From off the frozen reels;
     Though the fog be dark around us,
     And the storm blow high and loud,
     We will whistle down the wild wind,
     And laugh beneath the cloud!

     In the darkness as in daylight,
     On the water as on land,
     God's eye is looking on us,
     And beneath us is His hand!
     Death will find us soon or later,
     On the deck or in the cot;
     And we cannot meet him better
     Than in working out our lot.

     Hurrah! hurrah! the west-wind
     Comes freshening down the bay,
     The rising sails are filling;
     Give way, my lads, give way!
     Leave the coward landsman clinging
     To the dull earth, like a weed;
     The stars of heaven shall guide us,
     The breath of heaven shall speed!

     1845.