Page:The Spirit of the Nation.djvu/169

Rh The wide world sunk in dreams and death,

With guilt and wrong upon its breast,

Like night-mares choking up its breath,

And murdering all its holy rest?

Bethink ye, how with heart and brain

This God-like work were ablest done;

For man must ne'er go back again

And lose the triumphs he has won.

Ye who have spurned the tyrant's power,

And fought your own great spirits free,

Forget not in this trying hour

The claims of struggling slavery!

The wise and good! oh, where are they

To guide us onward to the Right,

Untruth and specious lies to slay,

And red oppression in its might?

Come forth, my brothers, on with us—

Direct the battle we would give;

By thousands we would die—if thus

The millions yet unborn may live.

For what is death to him who dies

With God's own blessing on his head?

A charter—not a sacrifice—

A life immortal to the dead.

And life itself is only great

When man devotes himself to be

By virtue, thought, and deed, the mate

Of God's own children and the free.

And are we free? O, blot and shame!

That men who for a thousand years

Have battled on through fire and flame,

And nourished with their blood and tears—

Religion—Freedom—Civil Right—

Should tamely suffer traitor hands

To dash them into gloom and night,

And bind the very God with bands.