Background: The Albany Freeholder, an anti-rent newspaper, was published between 1845-1854. No page numbers were used.

The identity of the Forest Minstrel is unknown; he/she gave his/her address as Middletown in several poems.  It is possible he/she was inspired by James Hogg (1770 - 1835), a Scottish poet and novelist who wrote a collection of songs entitled "The Forest Minstrel".

(For the Freeholder.)

THE AFFLICTED TENANT’S APPEAL.

Hail Philanthropy! sweet stranger,

Welcome, welcome here,

Heaven-born guest, affliction soother,

Suffering thousands, claim thy tear.

Shall we tell our tale of sorrow?

Give to silent grief a tongue,

Through what scenes of wo we’ve struggled,

How our hearts are buis’d and wrung.

Our oppressors have been cruel

Foes to thy angelic sway –

Cold, unfeeling, fierce, rapacious

Hearts of adamant have they.

Tedious years pass in revision,

Months of wearisome despair,

Days of labor, hours of weeping,

Nights of life-consuming care.

Through the solar drought of summer,

Through the storms of winter drear,

Heavy hearted and an hunger’d

Thus we toil’d from year to year.

Thus we rescued from the forest,

Lands, before a tangled wild,

And, by care and cultivation,

Made the fields around us smile.

Soon as plenty bless’d our dwellings,

And our hopes began to bloom,

Rent, that besom of destruction,

Swept our prospects to the tomb.

Long we bore the cruel burden,

Met the canal rent demand,

And the debt we could not cancel,

(Land-lords grasp with iron hand.)

But affliction’s sable Angel

Darkly frowning on us rose;

Disappointments, losses, sickness,

Sadly, thickly, round us close.

Then we sought our land-lords pity,

Yet we blush as thought returns,

How we humbly sued for favor –

How our suit was coldly spurn’d.

Yes, we plainly spoke our trouble,

Desperation made us bold;

But we saw a storm was gathering

When our woes and wants we told.

Surely have we given forbearance,

Staid the ready lifted hand,

When he answer’d stern and haughty:

“Pay your rent, or leave the land.”

“Don’t tell me about your losses,

Go, discharge your idle brood,

You bring your children up too tender;

Turn them out to earn their bread.”

“Your wives are far less sick than lazy;

You, yourselves, are lazy too.

You don’t half work, you live too costly,

Dainties were not made for you.”

* * * *

Then the Sheriff, and the Agent,

Rush’d upon us in career –

Then blank horror siez’d our vitals –

Then we shook with rage and fear.

That for which we’d long been striving,

All our hopes for years to come,

Torn away – our wives and children,

Turn’d abroad without a home.

Restless, way-worn, faint and weary

Wanderers since that fated day,

Often forced to change our dwellings;

Thus, we thread our cheerless way.

Human prospects gather blackness –

Friends have fled and youth is past;

All that render’d life endearing,

Swept before misfortunes blast.

Those who rob’d us, boast of title;

Vauntingly they boast their gold,

Talk of land, and great possession –

Then our house and lands they sold.

Those who spoil us, mock our sorrows –

Insolently boast their powers;

Talk of rights, of law and order,

Burst our doors at mid-night hours.

* * * *

Men of feeling, sons of reason,

Tell us why we should obey?

Have we not the same Creator,

Form’d out of the self same clay?

Form’d erect with souls immortal,

Souls endow’d with glorious powers;

Wisdom, virtue, truth, and honor,

Souls where reason nobly towers.

Should our Maker’s glorious likeness,

Bow before an earthly clod?

Wear the galling yoke of bondage;

Shall we thus dishonor God?

Tell us if the Lord who made us,

Did a race of slaves design,

Why he gave the love of freedom –

Gave an independent mind?

O, ye men who rule our nation,

Men of Legislative powers,

Is there no compassion for us;

No redress for wrongs like ours?

Must our sun’s go down in sorrow –

Must our days in darkness close?

Is there no kind arm to save us –

No kind heart to sooth our woes?

THE FOREST MINSTREL.
 Middletown, July the 1st, 1845.

Transcribed for this website by Terri Nan Ahrens.