Frances Ellen Watkins Harper — Lines

At the Portals of the Future,     Full of madness, guilt and gloom, Stood the hateful form of Slavery,     Crying, Give, Oh! give me room– Room to smite the earth with cursing,     Room to scatter, rend and slay, From the trembling mother’s bosom     Room to tear her child away; Room to trample on the manhood     Of the country far and wide; Room to spread o’er every Eden     Slavery’s scorching lava-tide. Pale and trembling stood the Future,     Quailing ‘neath his frown of hate, As he grasped with bloody clutches     The great keys of Doom and Fate. In his hand he held a banner     All festooned with blood and tears: ‘Twas a fearful ensign, woven     With the grief and wrong of years. On his brow he wore a helmet     Decked with strange and cruel art; Every jewel was a life-drop     Wrung from some poor broken heart. Though her cheek was pale and anxious,     Yet, with look and brow sublime, By the pale and trembling Future     Stood the Crisis of our time. And from many a throbbing bosom     Came the words in fear and gloom, Tell us, Oh! thou coming Crisis,     What shall be our country’s doom? Shall the wings of dark destruction     Brood and hover o’er our land, Till we trace the steps of ruin     By their blight, from strand to strand?