Anti-Slavery Poems I. - From Volume III., the Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery - Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 27 of 101 (26%)
page 27 of 101 (26%)
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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 |
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