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 home where man is man,
If such there be upon this earth,
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?



RESCUE THE SLAVE!

AIR--The Troubadour.

This song was composed while George Latimer, the fugitive slave, was
confined in Leverett Street Jail, Boston, expecting to be carried back
to Virginia by James B. Gray, his claimant.