Page:Poems written during the progress of the abolition question in the United States.djvu/45

 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, grasping 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;