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William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

The Impressed American

O! WHO can conceive how acute are my pains,

How my bosom with anguish is torn,

When I think, with regret, on those dear native plains,

Where none but a freeman is born?

O! curse on those fiends, having power to oppress,

Who wolf-like can prey on the weak;

Who deny the unfortunate man a redress,

And permit not the poor man to speak.

Fell Tyranny’s chains now unfetter my soul,

As rudely I’m toss’d on the main;

Fell Tyranny’s mandate, with lawless control,

Plies the lash—dare her victims complain?

With a quick-beating heart, while constrained I toil,

For my friends and my country I mourn;

And in retrospect trace all the scenes in that soil,

Where perhaps I shall never return.

When I think on my home, on my wife, and my child,

That would cherub-like spring on my knee;

My brain is on fire, my thoughts are as wild

As the storm-enraged waves of the sea.

Away, maddening thoughts, and begone, dark Despair!

There’s a Providence ruling on high,

Who the widow and orphan takes under his care,

And notes each oppress’d man’s sigh.