[Music]
Men! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free;
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Men unworthy to be freed?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain?
Women! who shall one day bear
Sons to breathe God's bounteous air,
If ye hear without a blush,
Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains;
Answer! are ye fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free?
Is true freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And with hand and heart to be
Earnest to make others free.
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves, who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than, in silence, shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves, who dare not be
In the right with _two_ or _three_.
That's my Country.
Does the land, in native might,
Pant for Liberty and Right?
Long to cast from human kind
Chains of body and of mind--
That's my country, that's the land
I can love with heart and hand,
O'er her miseries weep and sigh,
For her glory live and die.
Does the land her banner wave,
Most invitingly, to save;
Wooing to her arms of love,
Strangers who would freemen prove?
That's the land to which I cling,
Of her glories I can sing,
On her altar nobly swear
Higher still her fame to rear.
Does the land no conquest make,
But the war for honor's sake--
Count the greatest triumph won,
That which most of good has done--
That's the land approved of God;
That's the land whose stainless sod
O'er my sleeping dust shall bloom,
Noblest land and noblest tomb!