WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings cover

The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings

Chapter 14: FLIGHT OF THE BONDMAN.
By William Wells Brown
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - AmericanMusicPoetry

About This Book

A compilation of abolitionist songs and lyric pamphlets intended for anti-slavery gatherings, offering moral appeals, narratives of suffering, and calls to collective action. Poems dramatize the anguish of enslaved mothers, the fate of separated families, and the experiences of fugitives guided by the North Star, while urging political and religious solidarity against slavery. Several pieces adapt their words to familiar popular airs to facilitate communal singing, and the collection blends emotional testimony, exhortation, and patriotic imagery to mobilize audiences for emancipation.

FLIGHT OF THE BONDMAN.

DEDICATED TO WILLIAM W. BROWN,

And Sung by the Hutchinsons.

BY ELIAS SMITH.

Air—Silver Moon.
From the crack of the rifle and baying of hound,
Takes the poor panting bondman his flight;
His couch through the day is the cold damp ground,
But northward he runs through the night.
Chorus.
O, God speed the flight of the desolate slave,
Let his heart never yield to despair;
There is room ’mong our hills for the true and the brave,
Let his lungs breathe our free northern air!
O, sweet to the storm-driven sailor the light,
Streaming far o’er the dark swelling wave;
But sweeter by far ’mong the lights of the night,
Is the star of the north to the slave.
O, God speed, &c.
Cold and bleak are our mountains and chilling our winds,
But warm as the soft southern gales
Be the hands and the hearts which the hunted one finds,
’Mong our hills and our own winter vales.
O, God speed, &c.
Then list to the ’plaint of the heart-broken thrall,
Ye blood-hounds, go back to your lair;
May a free northern soil soon give freedom to all,
Who shall breathe in its pure mountain air.
O, God speed, &c.