O strange, that in our age, and in a land
Where liberty was laid the corner-stone,
A slave, perforce, should be obliged to dream,
And dote on freedom, like the poor oppressed
Who lived and hoped two thousand years ago!
And slavery to this slave was like a fruit--
A bitter and a hateful fruit to taste--
The fruit of error and of ignorance,
Made rank with superstition and with crime.
Yet though the fruit was bitter to the core,
Many there were who died for love of it.
O, many they who listen through long nights
To hear a footstep that will never come.
There is not a flower along the border blown,
From Lookout Mountain to the Chesapeake,
But has in it the blood of North and South.