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 Freedom

(American scholar and poet, 1819-1891, author of many impassioned poems of human freedom. An ardent anti-slavery advocate, it was said during the Civil War that his poetry was worth an army corps to the Union)

Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not feel the chain When it works a brother's pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed?

Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt? No! True Freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think: They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.