Is there a breast so chilled in life, Can nurse the coward’s sigh? Is there a creature so debased, Would not for freedom die? O, let him then be doomed to crawl Where only reptiles live; Nor never, never know the sweets That liberty can give.
Ye spirits of the free, Can ye forever see Your brother man A yoked and scourged slave, Chains dragging to his grave, And raise no hand to save? Say if you can.
In pride and pomp to roll, Shall tyrants from the soul God’s image tear, And call the wreck their own,-- While, from the eternal throne, They shut the stifled groan And bitter prayer?
Shall he a slave be bound, Whom God hath doubly crowned Creation’s lord? Shall men of Christian name, Without a blush of shame, Profess their tyrant claim From God’s own word?
No! at the battle cry, A host prepared to die, Shall arm for fight-- But not with martial steel, Grasped with a murderous zeal; No arms their foes shall feel, But love and light.
Firm on Jehovah’s laws, Strong in their righteous cause, Their march to save. And vain the tyrant’s mail, Against their battle-hail, Till cease the woe and wail Of tortured slave.
I am an Abolitionist! I glory in the name: Though now by Slavery’s minions hiss’d And covered o’er with shame, It is a spell of light and power-- The watchword of the free:-- Who spurns it in the trial-hour, A craven soul is he!
I am an Abolitionist! Then urge me not to pause; For joyfully do I enlist In FREEDOM’S sacred cause: A nobler strife the world ne’er saw, Th’ enslaved to disenthral; I am a soldier for the war, Whatever may befall!
I am an Abolitionist! Oppression’s deadly foe; In God’s great strength will I resist, And lay the monster low; In God’s great name do I demand, To all be freedom given, That peace and joy may fill the land, And songs go up to heaven!
I am an Abolitionist! No threats shall awe my soul, No perils cause me to desist, No bribes my acts control; A freeman will I live and die, In sunshine and in shade, And raise my voice for liberty, Of nought on earth afraid.
O, deep was the anguish of the slave mother’s heart, When called from her darling forever to part; So grieved that lone mother, that heart-broken mother, In sorrow and woe.
The lash of the master her deep sorrows mock, While the child of her bosom is sold on the block; Yet loud shrieked that mother, poor heart-broken mother, In sorrow and woe.