the straightest boughs; Cut down the trees in the forest, And build me a wooden house. Call the people together, The young men and the sires, The digger in the harvest field, Hireling, and him that hires; And here in a pine state-house They shall choose men to rule In every needful faculty, In church, and state, and school. Lo, now! if these poor men Can govern the land and sea, And make just laws below the sun, As planets faithful be. And ye shall succour men; ’T is nobleness to serve; Help them who cannot help again: Beware from right to swerve. I break your bonds and masterships, And I unchain the slave: Free be his heart and hand henceforth As wind and wandering wave. I cause from every creature His proper good to flow: As much as he is and doeth, So much he shall bestow. But laying hands on another To coin his labour and sweat, He goes in pawn to his victim For eternal years in debt. To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound! Pay ransom to the owner, And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him. O North! give him beauty for rags, And honour, O South! for his shame; Nevada! coin thy golden crags With Freedom’s image and name. Up! and the dusky race That sat in darkness long,— Be swift their feet as antelopes, And as behemoth strong. Come, East and West and North, By races, as snow-flakes, And carry my purpose forth, Which neither halts nor shakes. My will fulfilled shall be, For, in daylight or in dark, My thunderbolt has eyes to see His way home to the mark. VOLUNTARIES. I. Low and mournful be the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Moanings of the tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains, Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric’s torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed— Hapless sire to hapless son— Was the wailing song he breathed, And his chain when life was done. What his fault, or what his crime? Or
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