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O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown!
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone!
To the land of the South—of the Charter and Chain—
Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pail;
Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips!
Where 'chivalric' honor means really no more
Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor!
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high,
And the words which he utters are—Worship, or die!
Right onward, oh, speed it—wherever the blood
Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God;
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining—
Wherever the lash of the driver is twining—
Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart,
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart—
Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind,
In silence and darkness, the God-given mind—
There, God speed it onward!—its truth will be felt—
The bonds shall be loosened—the iron shall melt!
And oh, will the land, where the free soul of Penn
Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen—
Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went forth
To the peeled, and the meted, and the outcast of earth—
Where the words of the charter of liberty first
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