James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
June 12The Kidnapping of Sims
By John Pierpont (17851866)
S
On Bunker’s height who bled!
The pile, that stands
On your long-buried bones—
Those monumental stones—
Should not suppress the groans
This day demands.
There gave the earth your blood;
There found your graves;
That men of every clime,
Faith, color, tongue, and time,
Might, through your death sublime,
Never be slaves.
Heard ye not, long ago,
A voice of power
Proclaim to earth and sea,
That where ye sleep should be
A home for Liberty
Till Time’s last hour?
Now clanking round your graves?
Hear ye the sound
Of that same voice that calls
From out our Senate halls,
“Hunt down those fleeing thralls,
With horse and hound!”
’Tis heard, and is obeyed!
This gloomy day
Tells you of ermine stained,
Of Justice’s name profaned,
Of a poor bondman chained
And borne away!
Her eagles spread their wings,
Her Blue Ridge towers—
That voice—once heard with awe—
Now asks, “Who ever saw,
Up there, a higher law
Than this of ours?”
When God or man’s the choice,
Must we postpone
Him, who from Sinai spoke?
Must we wear slavery’s yoke?
Bear of her lash the stroke,
And prop her throne?
Run down the poor who flee
From slavery’s hell?
Great God! when we do this
Exclude us from thy bliss;
At us let angels hiss
From heaven that fell!