E-text prepared by Sean C. Sieger and Project Gutenberg Distributed
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1848.
The demand of the public for a cheap Anti-Slavery Song-Book,containing Songs of a more recent composition, has induced meto collect together, and present to the public, the songs containedin this book.
In making this collection, however, I am indebted to the authorsof the "Liberty Minstrel," and "the Anti-Slavery Melodies,"But the larger portion of these songs has never before been published;some have never been in print.
To all true friends of the Slave, the Anti-Slavery Harp isrespectfully dedicated,
AIR—Bride's Farewell.
Am I not a man and brother?
Ought I not, then, to be free?
Sell me not one to another,
Take not thus my liberty.
Christ our Saviour, Christ our Saviour,
Died for me as well as thee.
Am I not a man and brother?
Have I not a soul to save?
Oh, do not my spirit smother,
Making me a wretched slave;
God of mercy, God of mercy,
Let me fill a freeman's grave!
Yes, thou art a man and brother,
Though thou long hast groaned a slave,
Bound with cruel cords and tether
From the cradle to the grave!
Yet the Saviour, yet the Saviour,
Bled and died all souls to save.
Yes, thou art a man and brother,
Though we long have told thee nay;
And are bound to aid each other,
All along our pilgrim way.
Come and welcome, come and welcome,
Join with us to praise and pray!
AIR—Araby's Daughter.
I pity the slave mother, careworn and weary,
Who sighs as she presses her babe to her breast;
I lament her sad fate, all so hopeless and dreary,
I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed.
O who can imagine her heart's deep emotion,
As she thinks of her children about to be sold;
You may picture the bounds of the rock-girdled ocean,
But the grief of that mother can never be known.
The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom,
That ever has bloomed in her path-way below;
It has froze every fountain that gushed in her bosom,
And chilled her heart's verdure with pitiless woe;
Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression;
Her husband still doomed in its desert to stay;
No arm to protect from the tyrant's aggression—
She must weep as she treads on her desolate way.
O, slave mother, hope! see—the nation is shaking!
The arm of the Lord is awake to thy wrong!
The slave-holder's heart now with terror is quaking,
Salvation and Mercy to Heaven belong!
Rejoice, O rejoice! for the child thou art rearing,
May one day lift up its unmanacled form,
While hope, to thy heart, like the rai