Gild Freedom's coffin o'er and o'er,
When all within was rotten.

'These loud ancestral boasts of yours,
How can they else than vex us?
Where were your dinner orators
When slavery grasped at Texas? 100
Dumb on his knees was every one
That now is bold as Cæsar;
Mere pegs to hang an office on
Such stalwart men as these are.'

'Good sir,' I said, 'you seem much stirred;
The sacred compromises'--
'Now God confound the dastard word!
My gall thereat arises:
Northward it hath this sense alone
That you, your conscience blinding, 110
Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone,
When slavery feels like grinding.

''Tis shame to see such painted sticks
In Vane's and Winthrop's places,
To see your spirit of Seventy-Six
Drag humbly in the traces,
With slavery's lash upon her back,
And herds, of office-holders
To shout applause, as, with a crack, 119
It peels her patient shoulders.