Songs of Slavery and Emancipation by Mat Callahan

Author:Mat Callahan [Callahan, Mat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781496840172
Publisher: UP of Mississippi
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

FLIGHT OF THE BONDMAN

In original: “Dedicated to William W. Brown, and sung by the Hutchinsons (Silver Moon).”

Source: The Anti-Slavery Harp (1848).

Author: Elias Smith.

Composer: “Roll On, Silver Moon,” Jane Sloman, 1841 (adapted by Mat Callahan).

From the crack of the rifle and baying of hound,

Takes the poor panting bondman his flight;

His couch through the day is the cold damp ground,

But northward he runs through the night.

Chorus;

O, God speed the flight of the desolate slave,

Let his heart never yield to despair;

There is room ’mong our hills for the true and the brave,

Let his lungs breathe our free northern air!

O, sweet to the storm-driven sailor the light,

Streaming far o’er the dark swelling wave;

But sweeter by far ’mong the lights of the night,

Is the star of the north to the slave.

Chorus:

Cold and bleak are our mountains and chilling our winds,

But warm as the soft southern gales

Be the hands and the hearts which the hunted one finds,

’Mong our hills and our own winter vales.

Chorus:

Then list to the ’plaint of the heart-broken thrall,

Ye blood-hounds, go back to your lair;

May free northern soil soon give freedom to all,

Who shall breathe in its pure mountain air.

Chorus:

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