Page:Poems written during the progress of the abolition question in the United States.djvu/106

 Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us? Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now?

No—when our land to ruin's brink is verging, In God's name, let us speak while there is time! Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, !

What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter, For treacherous peace, the Nature gave us, God and our charter?

Here shall the statesman seek the free to fetter? Here Lynch law light its horrid fires on high? And, in the church, their proud and skilled abettor Make truth a lie?—

Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel Both man and God?

Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger, Day after day?