Public-domain ebook
English3,495 downloads on Project GutenbergDownload EPUB
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #22089.
The Liberty Minstrel is an 1844 collection of antislavery songs and poems assembled for performance. George Washington Clark pairs lyrics by writers including John Greenleaf Whittier, William Cowper, Eliza Lee Follen, Charlotte Elizabeth, and others with music, arrangements, and tunes, presenting songs about families separated by sale, forced labor, grief, faith, and the longing for freedom. Clark envisions the volume being sung by associations in every community, by rich and poor, young and old, with clear enunciation and genuine feeling. The result is both a musical anthology and an expressly abolitionist appeal, intended to stir sympathy for enslaved people and affirm their equal humanity.
Its voice is earnest, exhortatory, devotional, and often intensely dramatic. Refrains, direct questions, repeated cries, and scenes of mothers, fathers, and children give the verses a strong communal and performative character, while the preface argues that natural, heartfelt singing should move the conscience as well as please the ear. The book belongs to the American antislavery movement of the mid-nineteenth century and reflects its period’s poetic diction, religious language, and public-song culture. It will appeal to readers interested in abolitionist history, African American musical contexts, nineteenth-century reform literature, and songs designed not merely to entertain but to enlist the emotions in the cause of liberty.
The opening · free to read
It has been observed by travellers, that after a short residence in almost any of the cities of the eastern world, one would fancy "every second person a musician." During the night, the streets of these cities, particularly Rome, the capitol of Italy, are filled with all sorts of minstrelsy, and the ear is agreeably greeted with a perpetual confluence of sweet sounds. A Scotch traveller, in passing through one of the most delightful villas of Rome, overheard a stonemason chanting something in a strain of peculiar melancholy; and on inquiry, ascertained it to be the "_Lament of Tasso_." He soon learned that this celebrated piece was familiar to all the common people. Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of great merit, who was for many years deprived of liberty, and subjected to severe trials and misfortunes by the jealousy and cruelty of his patron, the Duke of Ferrara. That master-piece of music, so justly admired and so much sung by the high and low throughout all Italy, had its origin in the wrongs of Tasso. An ardent love of humanity--a deep consciousness of the injustice of slavery--a heart full of sympathy for the oppressed, and a due appreciation of the blessings of freedom, has given birth to the poetry comprising this volume. I have long desired to see these sentiments of love, of sympathy, of justice and humanity, so beautifully expressed in poetic measure, embalmed in sweet music; so that _all the people_--the rich, the poor, the young, and the old, who have hearts to feel, and tongues to move, may sing of the wrongs of slavery, and the blessings of liberty, until every human being shall recognise in his fellow an equal;--"a MAN and a BROTHER." Until by familiarity with these sentiments, and their influence upon their hearts, the people, whose duty it is, shall "undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free."
I announced, sometime since, my intention of publishing such a work. Many have been impatiently waiting its appearance. I should have been glad to have issued it and scattered it like leaves of the forest over the land, long ago, but circumstances which I could not control, have prevented. I purpose to enlarge the work from time to time, as circumstances may require.
Let associations of singers, having the love of liberty in their hearts, be immediately formed in every community. Let them study thoroughly, and make themselves perfectly familiar with both the poetry and the music, and enter into the sentiment of the piece they perform, that they may impress it upon their hearers. Above all things, let the enunciation of every word be clear and distinct. Most of the singing of the present day, is entirely too artificial, stiff and mechanical. It should be easy and natural; flowing directly from the soul of the performer, without affectation or display; and then singing will answer its true end, and not only please the ear, but affect and improve the heart.
To the true friends of universal freedom, the LIBERTY MINSTREL is respectfully dedicated.
G.W. CLARK.
NEW YORK, Oct. 1844.
Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air, Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters, Woe is me my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, There no mother's eye is near them, There no mother's ear can hear them; Never when the torturing lash Seams their back with many a gash, Shall a mother's kindness bless them, Or a mother's arms caress them. Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters, Woe is me my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, Oh, when weary, sad, and slow, From the fields at night they go, Faint with toil, and rack'd with pain, To their cheerless homes again-- There no brother's voice shall greet them-- There no father's welcome meet them.--_Gone, &c._
Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of play-- From the cool spring where they drank-- Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank-- From the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there.--_Gone, &c._
Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, Toiling through the weary day, And at night the Spoiler's prey; Oh, that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant's power is o'er, And the fetter galls no more!--_Gone, &c._
Gone, gone--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, By the holy love He beareth-- By the bruised reed He spareth-- Oh, may He, to whom alone All their cruel wrongs are known, Still their hope and refuge prove, With a more than mother's love.--_Gone, &c._
WHAT MEANS THAT SAD AND DISMAL LOOK?
Words by Geo. Russell. Arranged from "Near the Lake," by G.W.C.
What means that sad and dismal look, And why those falling tears? No voice is heard, no word is spoke, Yet nought but grief appears.
Ah! Mother, hast thou ever known The pain of parting ties? Was ever infant from thee torn And sold before thine eyes?
Say, would not grief thy bosom swell? Thy tears like rivers flow? Should some rude ruffian seize and sell The child thou lovest so?
There's feeling in a Mother's breast, Though colored be her skin! And though at Slavery's foul behest, She must not weep for kin.
I had a lovely, smiling child, It sat upon my knee; And oft a tedious hour beguiled, With merry heart of glee.
That child was from my bosom torn, And sold before my eyes; With outstretched arms, and looks forlorn, It uttered piteous cries.
Mother! dear Mother!--take, O take Thy helpless little one! Ah! then I thought my heart would break; My child--my child was gone.
Long, long ago, my child they stole, But yet my grief remains; These tears flow freely--and my soul In bitterness complains.
Then ask not why "my dismal look," Nor why my "falling tears," Such wrongs, what human heart can brook? No hope for me appears.
The Slave Boy's Wish.
BY ELIZA LEE FOLLEN.
I wish I was that little bird, Up in the bright blue sky; That sings and flies just where he will, And no one asks him why.
I wish I was that little brook, That runs so swift along; Through pretty flowers and shining stones, Singing a merry song.
I wish I was that butterfly, Without a thought or care; Sporting my pretty, brilliant wings, Like a flower in the air.
I wish I was that wild, wild deer, I saw the other day; Who swifter than an arrow flew, Through the forest far away.
I wish I was that little cloud, By the gentle south wind driven; Floating along, so free and bright, Far, far up into heaven.
I'd rather be a cunning fox, And hide me in a cave; I'd rather be a savage wolf, Than what I am--a slave.
My mother calls me her good boy, My father calls me brave; What wicked action have I done, That I should be a slave.
I saw my little sister sold, So will they do to me; My Heavenly Father, let me die, For then I shall be free.
THE BEREAVED FATHER.
Words by Miss Chandler. Music by G.W.C.
Ye've gone from me, my gentle ones! With all your shouts of mirth; A silence is within my walls, A darkness round my hearth, A darkness round my hearth.
Woe to the hearts that heard, unmoved, The mother's anguish'd shriek! And mock'd, with taunting scorn, the tears That bathed a father's cheek.
Woe to the hands that tore you hence, My innocent and good! Not e'en the tigress of the wild, Thus tears her fellow's brood.
I list to hear your soft sweet tones, Upon the morning air; I gaze amidst the twilight's gloom, As if to find you there.
But you no more come bounding forth To meet me in your glee; And when the evening shadows fall, Ye are not at my knee.
The book keeps going
Reading is free forever. Sign up and watch scenes appear while you read.
Scenes Storieta drew for other classics.
New illustrated classics
Once or twice a month: the latest books to get full character casts, scene art, and free comic editions. No account needed.
