Classic Poem

'Tis Freedom's voice, the joyous tone
Swells loud and far o'er sea and main:
The tyrant, on his tottering throne,
Shall strive to hush that shout in vain:
Man, long oppressed, awakes, and stands
With soul erect, and stalwart hands.

Breaks the bright morn, in days of yore
By holy seers so fondly sung,
When crushed by wrong to earth no more,
The chains shall from his arms be flung;
When all that feel oppression's rod,
Shall tread the earth — the freed of God.

Once waked and fired, the God-like soul
Sleeps not again; no force can stay
The glancing thought that spurns control;
Truths on it flash, as lightnings play,
While clouds and darkness thick surround
And thunders shake the solid ground.

From Tiber's banks, from Arno fair:
From many an Alpine cliff and glen;
From Rhone and Rhine; from Danube where
The Magyar waits to strike again:
Come murmurs which the day fortell,
When sounds the last oppressor's knell!

E'en the stern Turk has caught the word,
And Mejid swears in Freedom's name;
For Freedom flashes Omar's sword,
And Schamyll burns with Freedom's flame;
O'er Asia's plains her echoes sweep,
And China breaks her ancient sleep.

My native land! my native land!
Art thou not Freedom's chosen home?
Her place of rest, where many a band
Of sorrowing exiles cease to roam?
Joy — joy to see the nations wake
To lofty deeds for Freedom's sake!

Ah! — joy thou shouldst; but burning shame
Mounts to the cheek, to think that thou,
Mother of heroes who o'ercame
In Freedom's holy cause, shouldst now
Permit the bondman's groans to rise.
And cry against thee to the skies!

Shade of Virginia's mighty son!
Disturbed it not thy peaceful sleep —
That deed of wrong, ignobly done,
A faultless woman doomed to weep?
Woman — the generous, noble, kind,
Virginia, thou hast stooped to bind!

To bind for tender pity shown
To captives who thy bondage bear:
For Christ-like love, that should have sown
The seeds of truth bedewed by prayer,
In saddened hearts by thee consigned
To shades that dim the immortal mind!


Land of my birth! shall virtue be
In thee a prisoner sent to dwell,
Oppression's martyr — while I see
False, recreant statesmen, Freedom sell?
The WORLD'S DEEP SCORN the man must brave
Who gives Nebraska to the slave!