Lo! a picture came before me

      Of a million broken chains,

      Lying cankered with old blood-drops

      Which had oozed from tortured veins,

      Reddening the fleecy cotton

      Snowed upon the Southern plains.

      And the picture's tints grew deeper,

      Redder, blacker, as I gazed,

      And my weak knees smote together,

      And my eyes grew dim and glazed,

      At the vision's spectred horrors

      From the graves of vengeance raised.

      For, where liveoaks and magnolias

      Gloom the earth with densest shades,

      Where the snake and alligator

      Lurk in endless everglades,

      Where the cloud-lace-fretted sunset

      Lingering, longest night evades,

      Where the eagle builds his eyrie

      Nearest to the fervid skies,

      Where the buzzard swoops to fatten

      On the prey that lingering dies,

      Where the bloodhound's hellish baying

      Stills the hunted bondman's cries,

      There uprose, all ghostly shadowed,

      Hosts of wasted, haggard forms;

      And their wild eyes glared and glittered

      Like heaven's fire in dark-browed storms,

      And with outstretched arms toward me

      They came rushing in thick swarms.

      And I saw upon their foreheads

      Letters where the irons burned,

      And their backs left gashed and harrowed

      Where the lash for life-blood yearned,

      And their lank limbs, fester-eaten,

      Showed where gnawing shackles turned.

      There were gaunt and frenzied mothers

      With wan children in their arms,

      There were youths, and there were maidens,

      Curses, tears, and wild alarms,

      There were auction blocks and hammers

      Where were bartered beauty's charms.

      Ah! my heart grew chill within me,

      And my 'frighted blood congealed,

      As my soul's eye raised the shadows

      Which like curtains half concealed

      Deeper horrors, depths of anguish

      Left till God's day unrevealed!

      And my soul went up in sighing

      To God's ear: 'And Thou dost know,

      High and Holy! men are devils,

      Earth, like hell, is drowned in woe?'

      Came an answer: 'Hark! my war-blast

      Dealing sin a staggering blow!'

      'Father! though the chains be broken,'

      Cried my soul, 'the wounds remain,

      Deeper than the irons wore them,

      'Neath the brow within the brain,

      'Neath the body in the spirit!

      Peals Thy war-blast not in vain?

      'How shall knowledge, how shall virtue

      Dwell with ignorance and sin?

      Where is found that earthly saintship

      Can consort with devils' din?

      Who the saintly self-denying

      Through bell's door would look within

      'E'en to save the devil's victims,

      Snatch them from the cooling flames,

      Kiss with love their long-charred spirits,

      Breathe new souls into their names,

      Wing them to the climes supernal,

      And to angels' loud acclaims?'

      Then came answer: 'Lo! I call them,

      Ministers of love, I call!'

      Then I waited in the silence,

      With God waited over all,

      Till I knew how He forgetteth

      No one worthy, great or small.

      For I saw from where the ocean

      Drifts its rhythms to the beach,

      From where mountain snows eternal

      Far toward heaven as stainless reach,

      From where gold and russet harvests

      Of God's 'whelming bounty teach,

      From where all are always freemen,

      From where colleges and schools

      Free the mind from Old-World trammels,

      Unfit men for tyrants' tools,

      From where firesides and altars

      Govern hearts with golden rules,

      Came, as flowers come in spring-time

      Dropt from Winter's icy hand,

      Came to cheer, to teach, to brighten—

      God's commissioned, shining band;

      Came with hands and hearts o'erflowing

      To renew the Southern land!

      And I watched how spirit-anguish

      Songs and smiles soon soothed, allayed,

      And how soul-wounds touched by kindness,

      As by Christ, could heal and fade,

      And how darkness fled affrighted

      Where these angels wept and prayed.

      And