Page:Poems written during the progress of the abolition question in the United States.djvu/50

 Shall outraged nature cease to feel? Shall mercy's tears no longer flow? Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel— The dungeon's gloom—th' assassin's blow, Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth—our Country—and the Slave? Of human skulls that shrine was made, Whereon the priests of Mexico Before their loathsome idol prayed— Is Freedom's altar fashioned so? And must we yield to Freedom's God, As offering meet, the negro's blood? Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest hell? Shall freemen lock th' indignant thought? Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell? Shall Honor bleed?—Shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb? No—by each spot of haunted ground, Where Freedom weeps her children's fall— By Plymouth's rock—and Bunker's mound— By Griswold's stained and shattered wall— By Warren's ghost—by Langdon's shade— By all the memories of our dead! By their enlarging souls, which burst The bands and fetters round them set— By the nursed Within our inmost bosoms, yet,—