Then, answer, is the spirit
Less noble or less free?
From whom does it inherit
The doom of slavery?
When man can bind the waters,
That they no longer roll,
Then let him forge the fetters
To clog the human soul.

Till then a voice is stealing
From earth and sea and sky,
And to the soul revealing
Its immortality.
The swift wind chants the numbers
Careering o'er the sea,
And earth, aroused from slumbers,
Re-echoes, "Man, be free."



THE FUGITIVE SLAVE TO THE CHRISTIAN.


The fetters galled my weary soul--
A soul that seemed but thrown away;
I spurned the tyrant's base control,
Resolved at last the man to play:--
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian! will you send me back?