98
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us?
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so low,
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us
To silence now?
No—when our land to ruin's brink is verging,
In God's name, let us speak while there is time!
Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging,
Silence is crime!
What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors
Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter,
For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us,
God and our charter?
Here shall the statesman seek the free to fetter?
Here Lynch law light its horrid fires on high?
And, in the church, their proud and skilled abettor
Make truth a lie?—
Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible,
To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood?
And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel
Both man and God?
Shall our New England stand erect no longer,
But stoop in chains upon her downward way,
Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger,
Day after day?
