Classic Poem

Oh, hark! can you hear through the midnight a cry?
The captive's low wail from McHenry's prison!
Though the dungeon be deep and the battlements high,
The manacle's bolt, it hath burst—and arisen.
It hath “gone up on high,” it hath climbed to the sky;
It hath crept into heaven; it never shall die
While a stripe of the despots' black banner shall wave
O'er the limbs of the free and the hearts of the brave.

Whenever, oh, freemen, that murmur awakes,
Then, wake ye and rise, there is death in slumbers;
Be the echo ye yield as the tempest that shakes
A continent's width, with a continent's numbers!
Ye have blood to be stirred! let it leap to the word,
That shouts with the trumpet and shines with the sword
While a stripe of the despots' black banner shall wave
O'er the limbs of the free, o'er the hearts of the brave.

Oh! swift be the sword, in the day of its wrath,
To cleave the dark walls of yon dungeon asunder;
When the captive's appeal shall return on its path
With the lightning's red flash and the leaping of thunder;
For the judgment is set, for the storm-clouds are met,
And the vengeance that lingers shall never forget,
While a stripe of the despots' black banner shall wave
O'er the limbs of the free, o'er the hearts of the brave.