A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood- From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well! By storied hill and hallowed grot, What, ho!our countrymen in chains! The whip on WOMAN's shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with the stains, Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! AMERICANS to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold! Speak! shall their agony of prayer To us, whose boast is loud and long Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong, What! shall we send, with lavish breath, Strikes for his freedom, or a grave? Our light on all her altars burning? Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, The impulse of our cheering call? Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave? Shall every flap of England's flag Go-let us ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland's throat; Just God! and shall we calmly rest, the heathen's mirth The Christian's scorn Shall our own glorious land retain That curse which Europe scorns to bear? Shall our own brethren drag the chain Which not even Russia's menials wear? Up, then, in Freedom's manly part, Scatter the living coals of Truth! Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth- Feel ye no earthquake underneath? Up now for Freedom! - not in strife Like that your sterner fathers saw The awful waste of human life The glory and the guilt of war: Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, Nor longer let its idol drink His daily cup of human blood: But rear another altar there, To Truth and Love and Mercy given, And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, Shall call an answer down from Heaven! J CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. UST God! - and these are they Who minister at thine altar, God of Right! Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel's Ark of light! What! preach and kidnap men? Give thanks and rob thy own afflicted poor? What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and save Pilate and Herod, friends! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine! Paid hypocrites, who turn Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book Of those high words of truth which search and burn In warning and rebuke; Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, Is not thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? Shall not the living God of all the earth, And heaven above, do right? Woe, then, to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down! Woe to the priesthood! woe To those whose hire is with the price of blood — Their glory and their might Shall perish; and their very names shall be Of a world's liberty. Oh! speed the moment on When Wrong shall cease - and Liberty, and Love, And Truth, and Right, throughout the earth be known As in their home above. |