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

ASTRAEA.

          "Jove means to settle
          Astraea in her seat again,
          And let down from his golden chain
          An age of better metal."
                      BEN JONSON, 1615.

     O POET rare and old!
     Thy words are prophecies;
     Forward the age of gold,
     The new Saturnian lies.

     The universal prayer
     And hope are not in vain;
     Rise, brothers! and prepare
     The way for Saturn's reign.

     Perish shall all which takes
     From labor's board and can;
     Perish shall all which makes
     A spaniel of the man!

     Free from its bonds the mind,
     The body from the rod;
     Broken all chains that bind
     The image of our God.

     Just men no longer pine
     Behind their prison-bars;
     Through the rent dungeon shine
     The free sun and the stars.

     Earth own, at last, untrod
     By sect, or caste, or clan,
     The fatherhood of God,
     The brotherhood of man!

     Fraud fail, craft perish, forth
     The money-changers driven,
     And God's will done on earth,
     As now in heaven.

     1852.