TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN.
John C. Calhoun, who had strongly urged the extension of slave territory
by the annexation of Texas, even if it should involve a war with
England, was unwilling to promote the acquisition of Oregon, which would
enlarge the Northern domain of freedom, and pleaded as an excuse the
peril of foreign complications which he had defied when the interests
of slavery were involved.
Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear
Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear,
Actieon-like, the bay of thine own hounds,
Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds?
Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand,
With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack,
To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land,
Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back,
These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track?
Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue,
Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung,
O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan,
Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man?
How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting,
And pointing to the lurid heaven afar,
Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting,
Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star!
The Fates are just; they give us but our own;
Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.
There is an Eastern story, not unknown,
Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill
Called demons up his water-jars to fill;
Deftly and silently, they did his will,
But, when the task was done, kept pouring still.
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