My country! by our fathers reared
As champion of the world's opprest;
Whose moral force the tyrant feared;
Whose flag all struggling freemen cheered;
In clutching at an empire's crest
Thou too art fallen like the rest.

Not in thy numbers, wealth or might,
Proud mistress of a continent!
For rival nations, at the sight
Of thy resources, view with fright
Thy progress without precedent;
Not there is seen thy swift descent.

Reread the story of thy birth!
Recall the years in conflict spent
To prove to a despairing earth
That every Government of worth
Is really based on free consent;
Then view with shame thy present bent!

Thou hadst a place unique, sublime;
In many a land beyond the sea
The victims of despotic crime
In thee, the latest born of Time,
Beheld a land from tyrants free,
The sacred Ark of Liberty.

But now the Old World's lust for lands