Not now, my tongue, to legends old,
Or tender lays of sunny clime;
A sterner tale must now be told,
Deep thoughts must burn in warlike rhyme;
For Freedom, with a mighty throe,
Rouses from sleep to active life,
And loud her clarion trumpets blow,
To summon men to join the strife.
The seed, which long ago was sown
By free New England's rock-bound rills,
At length, in noble vigor grown,
Casts branches o'er the Southern hills.
Far o'er the prairies of the West
Rings Freedom's thrilling battle-cry,
Re-echoed where each mountain crest
Lifts Maine's dark forests to the sky.
Go forth, ye warriors for the right!
Lift high the banner of the free!
Shine far into Oppression's night,
Bright oriflamme of Liberty!
For, God be praised, the lowering cloud
So long impending overhead,
Which nations thought our funeral shroud,
Shall prove our victory-robe instead.
O maiden, who with tender smile,
O wife, who with enslaving kiss,
Some dearly loved one would beguile
From duty in a field like this;
Conjure before thy tearful sight
The glories future years shall know,
Unclasp thine arms—in Freedom's fight,
Bid him be valiant,—bid him, 'go.'
Be with him both in camp, in field,
With tender thought and earnest prayer;
Think, those who Freedom's weapons wield,
God makes his own peculiar care.
And if he fall,—as chance he may,—
Rejoice the glorious boon is thine,
To lay thy heart-flowers of a day
On Freedom's grand, eternal shrine!
O warrior, nerve thy courage well!
For fierce and stern the strife will be,—
Oppression, Wrong, the powers of hell,
War against Right and Liberty.
Fight, for the victory must be thine;
No nobler strife the world has known
Since first the Saviour, all divine,
Brought life to man from God's high throne.
And ye, who sit in seats of power,
The instruments of God's high will,
Be ye not wanting in this hour
So big with future good or ill.
Fail not, for Freedom's car rolls on
Resistless in its glorious way;
Some shall to honor be upborne,
They who oppose be crushed to clay.
Hark! from the sunny Southern plains
There comes a sound still swelling on,
The clanking of a million chains,
The cry, the groan, the lash, the moan.
That sound for years has gone on high;
The hour of judgment comes apace,
The day of right and liberty,
Of freedom for the human race.
Speed, speed the day, O righteous God,
To break the fetters, dry the tears,
To raise the slave, so long downtrod,
Through the dark age of by-gone years!
Give but to us the sword of power,
To work thy ends, in thine own way,
To see the promise of the hour
Of this the world's most glorious day.