Expostulation

Our fellow-countrymen in chains!     Slaves, in a land of light and law!     Slaves, crouching on the very plains     Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!     A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood,     A. wail where Camden's martyrs fell,     By every shrine of patriot blood,     From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well!     By storied hill and hallowed grot,     By mossy wood and marshy glen,     Whence rang of old the rifle-shot,     And hurrying shout of Marion's men!     The groan of breaking hearts is there,     The falling lash, the fetter's clank!     Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air     Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank!     What, ho! our countrymen in chains!     The whip on woman's shrinking flesh!     Our soil yet reddening with the stains     Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh!     What! mothers from their children riven!     What! God's own image bought and sold!     Americans to market driven,     And bartered as the brute for gold!     Speak! shall their agony of prayer     Come thrilling to our hearts in vain?     To us whose fathers scorned to bear     The paltry menace of a chain;     To us, whose boast is loud and long     Of holy Liberty and Light;     Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong     Plead vainly for their plundered Right?     What! shall we send, with lavish breath,     Our sympathies across the wave,     Where Manhood, on the field of death,     Strikes for his freedom or a grave?     Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung     For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning,     And millions hail with pen and tongue     Our light on all her altars burning?     Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France,     By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall,     And Poland, gasping on her lance,     The impulse of our cheering call?     And shall the slave, beneath our eye,     Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain?     And toss his fettered arms on high,     And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain?     Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be     A refuge for the stricken slave?     And shall the Russian serf go free     By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave?     And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane     Relax the iron hand of pride,     And bid his bondmen cast the chain     From fettered soul and limb aside?     Shall every flap of England's flag     Proclaim that all around are free,     From farthest Ind to each blue crag     That beetles o'er the Western Sea?     And shall we scoff at Europe's kings,     When Freedom's fire is dim with us,     And round our country's altar clings     The damning shade of Slavery's curse?     Go, let us ask of Constantine     To loose his grasp on Poland's throat;     And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line     To spare the struggling Suliote;     Will not the scorching answer come     From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ     "Go, loose your fettered slaves at home,     Then turn, and ask the like of us!"     Just God! and shall we calmly rest,     The Christian's scorn, the heathen's mirth,     Content to live the lingering jest     And by-word of a mocking Earth?     Shall our own glorious land retain     That curse which Europe scorns to bear?     Shall our own brethren drag the chain     Which not even Russia's menials wear?     Up, then, in Freedom's manly part,     From graybeard eld to fiery youth,     And on the nation's naked heart     Scatter the living coals of Truth!     Up! while ye slumber, deeper yet     The shadow of our fame is growing!     Up! while ye pause, our sun may set     In blood, around our altars flowing!     Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth,     The gathered wrath of God and man,     Like that which wasted Egypt's earth,     When hail and fire above it ran.     Hear ye no warnings in the air?     Feel ye no earthquake underneath?     Up, up! why will ye slumber where     The sleeper only wakes in death?     Rise now for Freedom! not in strife     Like that your sterner fathers saw,     The awful waste of human life,     The glory and the guilt of war:'     But break the chain, the yoke remove,     And smite to earth Oppression's rod,     With those mild arms of Truth and Love,     Made mighty through the living God!     Down let the shrine of Moloch sink,     And leave no traces where it stood;     Nor longer let its idol drink     His daily cup of human blood;     But rear another altar there,     To Truth and Love and Mercy given,     And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer,     Shall call an answer down from Heaven