loo, to the contest!
Awake from your sleeping--nor slumber again,
Once bound in your fetters, you'll struggle in vain;
While your eye-balls may move, O wake up now, or never--
Wake, freemen! awake, or you're ruined forever!
Yes, freemen are waking! we fling to the breeze,
The bright flag of freedom, the banner of Peace;
The slave long forgotten, forlorn, and alone,
We hail as a brother--our own mother's son!
Then halloo, halloo, halloo, to the contest!
For freedom we rally--for freedom to all--
To rescue the slave, and ourselves too from thrall.
We rally, rally, rally, rally, rally, rally--
While a slave shall remain, bound, the weak by the stronger,
We will never disband, but strive harder and longer.
OUR COUNTRYMEN ARE DYING.
Words by C.W. Dennison. Tune--"From Greenland's Icy Mountains."
[Music]
Our countrymen are dying
Beneath their cankering chains,
Full many a heart is sighing,
Where nought but slav'ry reigns;
No note of joy and gladness,
No voice with freedom's lay,
Fall on them in their sadness,
To wipe those tears away.
Where proud Potomac dashes
Along its northern strand,
Where Rappahannock lashes
Virginia's sparkling sand;
Where Eutaw, famed in story,
Flows swift to Santee's stream,
There, there in grief and gory,
The pining slave is seen!
And shall New England's daughters,
Descendants of the free,
Beside whose far-famed waters
Is heard sweet minstrelsy--
Shall they, when hearts are breaking,
And woman weeps in woe,
Shall they, all listless waiting,
No hearts of pity show.
No! let the shout for freedom
Ring out a certain peal,
Let sire and youthful maiden,
All who have hearts to feel,
Awake! and with the blessing
Of Him who came to save,
A holy, peaceful triumph,
Shall greet the kneeling slave!
We ask not Martial Glory.
We ask not "martial glory,"
Nor "battles bravely won;"
We tell no boastful story
To laud our "favorite son;"
We do not seek to gather
From glory's field of blood,
The laurels of the warrior,
Steeped in the crimson flood--
But we can boast that Birney
Holds not the tyrant's rod,
Nor binds in chains and fetters,
The image of his God;
No vassal, at his bidding,
Is doomed the lash to feel;
No menial crouches near him,
No Charley's[3] at his heel.
His heart is free from murder,
His hand without its stain;
His head and heart united,
To loose the bondman's chain:
His deeds of
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