HOSE mills of God! those tireless mills!

I hear their ceaseless throbs and thrills:

I see their dreadful stones go round,

And all the realms beneath them ground;

And lives of men and souls of states,

Flung out, like chaff, beyond their gates.

And we, O God! with impious will,

Have made these Negroes turn Thy mill!

Their human limbs with chains we bound,

And bade them whirl Thy mill-stones round;

With branded brow and fettered wrist,

We bade them grind this Nation's grist!

And so, like Samson—blind and bound—

Our Nation's grist this Negro ground;

With servile souls this mill we fed,

That ground the grain for Slavery's bread;

With cringing men, and grovelling deeds,

We dwarfed our land to Slavery's needs;

Till all the scornful nations hissed,

To see us ground with Slavery's grist.

The mill grinds on! From Slavery's plain,

We reap great crops of blood-red grain;

And still the Negro's strength we urge,

With Slavery's gyve and Slavery's scourge;

And still we crave—on Freedom's sod—

That Slaves shall turn the mills of God!

The Mill grinds on! God lets it grind!

We sow the seed—the sheaves we bind:

The mill-stones whirl as we ordain;

Our children's bread shall test the grain!

While Samson still in chains we bind,

The mill grinds on! God lets it grind!