The Fugitive Slave to the Christian.

34

Page Image

Words by Elizur Wright, jr. Music arranged from Cracovienne.

The fetters galled my weary soul, —
A soul that seemed but thrown away;
I spurned the tyrants base control,
Resolved at last the man to play: —
The hounds are baying

35

Page Image
on my track;
O Christian! Will you send me back?
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian will you send me back?

I felt the stripes, the lash I saw,
Red, dripping with a father's gore;
And, worst of all their lawless law,
The insults that my mother bore!
The hounds are baying on my track,
O Christian! will you send me back?
Where human, law o'errules Divine,
Beneath the sheriff's hammer fell
My wife and babes, — I call them mine, —
And where they suffer, who can tell?
The hounds are baying on my track,
O Christian! will you send me back?

I seek a borne where man is man,
If such there be upon this earth,

36

Page Image
To draw my kindred, if I can,
Around its free, though humble hearth.
The hounds are baying on my track,
O Christian! Will you send me back!