Solo.
Heavy and cold in his dungeon hold,
Is the yoke of the oppressor;
Dark o'er the soul is the fell control
Of the stern and dread transgressor.
Chorus.
Oh then come all to bring the thrall
Up from his deep despairing,
And out of the jaw of the bandit's law,
Retake the prey he's tearing:
O then come all to bring the thrall
Up from his deep despairing,
And out of the jaw of the bandit's law,
Retake the prey he's tearing.
Brothers be brave for the pining slave,
From his wife and children riven;
From every vale their bitter wail
Goes sounding up to Heaven.
Then for the life of that poor wife,
And for those children pining;
O ne'er give o'er till the chains no more
Around their limbs are twining.
Gloomy and damp is the low rice swamp,
Where their meagre bands are wasting;
All worn and weak, in vain they seek
For rest, to the cool shade hasting;
For drivers fell, like fiends from hell,
Cease not their savage shouting;
And the scourge's crack, from quivering back,
Sends up the red blood spouting.
Into the grave looks only the slave,
For rest to his limbs aweary;
His spirit's light comes from that night,
To us so dark and dreary.
That soul shall nurse its heavy curse
Against a day of terror,
When the lightning gleam of his wrath shall stream
Like fire, on the hosts of error.
Heavy and stern are the bolts which burn
In the right hand of Jehovah;
To smite the strong red arm of wrong,
And dash his temples over;
Then on amain to rend the chain,
Ere bursts the vallied thunder;
Right onward speed till the slave is freed—
His manacles torn asunder.