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The Voice of New England
UP the hillside, down the glen, | |
| Rouse the sleeping citizen; | |
| Summon out the might of men! | |
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| Like a lion growling low,— | |
| Like a night-storm rising slow,— | 5 |
| Like the tread of unseen foe,— | |
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| It is coming,—it is nigh! | |
| Stand your homes and altars by; | |
| On your own free thresholds die. | |
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| Clang the bells in all your spires; | 10 |
| On the gray hills of your sires | |
| Fling to heaven your signal-fires. | |
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| From Wachusett, lone and bleak, | |
| Unto Berkshire’s tallest peak, | |
| Let the flame-tongued heralds speak. | 15 |
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| Oh, for God and duty stand, | |
| Heart to heart and hand to hand, | |
| Round the old graves of the land. | |
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| Whoso shrinks or falters now, | |
| Whoso to the yoke would bow, | 20 |
| Brand the craven on his brow! | |
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| Freedom’s soil hath only place | |
| For a free and fearless race,— | |
| None for traitors false and base. | |
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| Perish party,—perish clan; | 25 |
| Strike together while ye can, | |
| Like the arm of one strong man. | |
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| Like that angel’s voice sublime, | |
| Heard above a world of crime, | |
| Crying of the end of time,— | 30 |
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| With one heart and with one mouth, | |
| Let the North unto the South | |
| Speak the word befitting both: | |
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| “What though Issachar be strong! | |
| Ye may load his back with wrong | 35 |
| Overmuch and over long; | |
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| “Patience with her cup o’errun, | |
| With her weary thread outspun, | |
| Murmurs that her work is done. | |
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| “Make our Union-bond a chain, | 40 |
| Weak as tow in Freedom’s strain | |
| Link by link shall snap in twain. | |
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| “Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope | |
| Bind the starry cluster up, | |
| Shattered over heaven’s blue cope! | 45 |
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| “Give us bright though broken rays, | |
| Rather than eternal haze, | |
| Clouding o’er the full-orbed blaze. | |
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| “Take your land of sun and bloom; | |
| Only leave to Freedom room | 50 |
| For her plough and forge and loom; | |
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| “Take your slavery-blackened vales; | |
| Leave us but our own free gales, | |
| Blowing on our thousand sails. | |
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| “Boldly, or with treacherous art, | 55 |
| Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; | |
| Break the Union’s mighty heart; | |
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| “Work the ruin, if ye will; | |
| Pluck upon your heads an ill | |
| Which shall grow and deepen still. | 60 |
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| “With your bondman’s right arm bare, | |
| With his heart of black despair, | |
| Stand alone, if stand ye dare! | |
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| “Onward with your fell design; | |
| Dig the gulf and draw the line: | 65 |
| Fire beneath your feet the mine: | |
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| “Deeply, when the wide abyss | |
| Yawns between your land and this, | |
| Shall ye feel your helplessness. | |
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| “By the hearth, and in the bed | 70 |
| Shaken by a look or tread, | |
| Ye shall own a guilty dread. | |
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| “And the curse of unpaid toil, | |
| Downward through your generous soil | |
| Like a fire shall burn and spoil. | 75 |
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| “Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, | |
| Vines our rocks shall overgrow, | |
| Plenty in our valleys flow;— | |
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| “And when vengeance clouds your skies, | |
| Hither shall ye turn your eyes, | 80 |
| As the lost on Paradise! | |
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| “We but ask our rocky strand, | |
| Freedom’s true and brother band, | |
| Freedom’s strong and honest hand,— | |
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| “Valleys by the slave untrod, | 85 |
| And the Pilgrim’s mountain sod, | |
| Blessed of our fathers’ God!” | |
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