Low and mournful be the strain,
Haughty thought be far from me;
Tones of penitence and pain,
Meanings 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 what ill planet crossed his prime? 
Heart too soft and will too weak
To front the fate that crouches near,—­
Dove beneath the vulture’s beak;—­
Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? 
Dragged from his mother’s arms and breast,
Displaced, disfurnished here,
His wistful toil to do his best
Chilled by a ribald jeer. 
Great men in the Senate sate,
Sage and hero, side by side,
Building for their sons the State,
Which they shall rule with pride. 
They forbore to break the chain
Which bound the dusky tribe,
Checked by the owners’ fierce disdain,
Lured by ‘Union’ as the bribe. 
Destiny sat by, and said,
’Pang for pang your seed shall pay,
Hide in false peace your coward head,
I bring round the harvest day.’

II

Freedom all winged expands,
Nor perches in a narrow place;
Her broad van seeks unplanted lands;
She loves a poor and virtuous race. 
Clinging to a colder zone
Whose dark sky sheds the snowflake down,
The snowflake is her banner’s star,
Her stripes the boreal streamers are. 
Long she loved the Northman well;
Now the iron age is done,
She will not refuse to dwell
With the offspring of the Sun;
Foundling of the desert far,
Where palms plume, siroccos blaze,
He roves unhurt the burning ways
In climates of the summer star. 
He has avenues to God
Hid from men of Northern brain,
Far beholding, without cloud,
What these with slowest steps attain. 
If once the generous chief arrive
To lead him willing to be led,
For freedom he will strike and strive,
And drain his heart till he be dead.

III

In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom’s fight,—­
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay
And quit proud homes and youthful dames
For famine, toil and fray? 
Yet on the nimble air benign
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease. 
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

IV