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 * —in a land of light and law!—

—crouching on the very plains
 * Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!

A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood—
 * A wail where Camden's martyrs fell—

By every shrine of patriot blood,
 * From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well!

By storied hill and hallowed grot,
 * By mossy wood and marshy glen,

Whence rang of old the rifle shot,
 * And hurrying shout of Marion's men!—

The groan of breaking hearts is there—
 * The falling lash—the fetter's clank!—

Slaves— are breathing in that air
 * Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank!

What, ho!—our countrymen in chains!—
 * The whip on 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!—

to market driven,
 * And bartered as the brute for gold!

Speak!—shall their agony of prayer
 * Come thrilling to our hearts in vain?

To us—whose fathers scorned to bear
 * The paltry menace of a chain;—

To us, whose boast is loud and long
 * Of holy liberty and light—

Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong
 * Plead vainly for their plundered Right?

What!—shall we send, with lavish breath,
 * Our sympathies across the wave,

Where manhood on the field of death
 * Strikes for his freedom or a grave?—

Shall prayers go up—and hymns be sung
 * For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning—

And millions hail with pen and tongue
 * Our light on all her altars burning?

Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France,
 * By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall,

And Poland, gasping on her lance,
 * The impulse of our cheering call?

And shall the, beneath our eye,
 * Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain?

And toss his fettered arms on high,
 * And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain?

Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be
 * A refuge for the stricken slave;—

And shall the Russian serf go free
 * By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave;—

And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane
 * Relax the iron hand of pride,

And bid his bondmen cast the chain
 * From fettered soul and limb aside?

Shall every flap of England's flag
 * Proclaim that all around are free,

From 'farthest Ind' to each blue crag
 * That beetles o'er the Western Sea?

And shall we scoff at Europe's kings,
 * When Freedom's fire is dim with us,

And round our country's altar clings
 * The damning shade of Slavery's curse?

Go—let us ask of Constantine
 * To loose his grasp on Poland's throat—

And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line
 * To spare the struggling Suliote.

Will not the scorching answer come
 * From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ—

'Go, loose your fettered slaves at home,
 * Then turn and ask the like of us!'

Just God! and shall we calmly rest,
 * The christian's scorn—the heathen's mirth—

Content to live the lingering jest
 * And by-word of a mocking earth?

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,
 * From gray-beard eld to fiery youth,

And on the nation's naked heart
 * Scatter the living coals of Truth.

Up—while ye slumber, deeper yet
 * The shadow of our fame is growing—

Up—While ye pause, our sun may set
 * In blood, around our altars flowing!

Oh rouse ye—ere the storm comes forth—
 * The gathered wrath of God and man—

Like that which wasted Egypt's earth,
 * When hail and fire above it ran.

Hear ye no warnings in the air?
 * Feel ye no earthquake underneath?

Up—up—why will ye slumber where
 * The sleeper only wakes in death?

Up for Freedom!—not in strife
 * Like that your sterner fathers saw,

The awful waste of human life—
 * The glory and the guilt of war:

But break the chain—the yoke remove,
 * And smite to earth oppression's rod,

With those mild arms of Truth and Love,
 * Made mighty through the living God!

Prone let the shrine of Moloch sink,
 * And leave no traces where it stood

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!