  Awake! ye sons of freedom, rise! Can ye not hear your country’s cries? Were ye but told that foes invade, That rifles flash and deadly blade Seek to destroy her glorious peace, How swift your arms to bring release! Strengthen your arms! lest dangers come More fearful than the victim’s doom; Lest faction riot through our land, Lest brother, slain by brother’s hand, Calls loud to Heaven for vengeance on This happiest nation ’neath the sun. Shall this, our land so gifted, be Cramped by a section’s tyranny? Shall North, or South, or East, or West, Claim despotism o’er the rest? Nay, let us now and ever be Our fathers fought for liberty, They bled and died, and now shall we Deny to others what they gave To us, their children, from the grave? Can we still cherish Slavery, And call our country still, “The Free?” Then, onward! patriots, poll-ward, on! Till your glorious cause be won, On! for right and liberty, On! for just equality, On! and let the watchword be, “Lincoln! Hamlin! Victory!” |
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