No. 5.

Dianthus Caryophyllus.

Pink. Carnation.

No. 5.

Dianthus Caryophyllus.

Pink. Carnation.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. 1659,

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

In the following ballad, the author has endeavored to display the strong enthusiasm of the early Quaker, the short-sighted intolerance of the clergy and magistrates, and that sympathy with the oppressed, which the "common people," when not directly under the control of spiritual despotism, have ever evinced. He is blind to the extravagance of language and action which characterized some of the pioneers of Quakerism in New England, and which furnished persecution with its solitary but most inadequate excuse.

The ballad has its foundation upon a somewhat remarkable event in the history of Puritan intolerance. Two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick, of Salem, who had been himself imprisoned, and deprived of all his property for having entertained two Quakers at his house, were fined ten pounds each for non-attendance at the church, which they were unable to pay. The case being represented to the General Court at Boston, that body, in obedience to the suggestions of its ghostly advisers and conscience-keepers, issued an order which may still be seen on the court records, bearing the signature of Edward Rawson, Secretary, by which the treasurer of the County was "fully empowered to sell the said persons to any of the English nation at Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer said fines." An attempt was made to carry this barbarous order into execution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to the West Indies.-Vide Sewall's History, pp. 255-6. G. Bishop.

To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise to-day,

From the scoffer and the cruel he hath plucked the spoil away,

Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful three,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set his handmaid free!

Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison-bars,
Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars;
In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night time,
My grated casement whitened with Autumn's early rime.

Alone in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by;
Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky;
No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea.

All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow,
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold,
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!

Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there the shrinking and the shame;
And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came:
"Why sit'st thou thus forlornly!" the wicked murmur said,
Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed?

"Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and sweet,
Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street?
Where be the youthful glances which all the Sabbath through
Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?

"Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra ?—Bethink thee with what mirth
Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth;

How the crimson shadows tremble, on foreheads white and fair,

On brows of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.

"Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are spoken, Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing boys are broken, No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid,

For thee no flowers of Autumn the youthful hunters braid.