Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Kidnapped Seamen

SONS of Freedom, break your slumbers!

Hear a brother’s piercing cries;

From amidst your foes’ deep thunders,

Hear his bitter griefs arise!

Seized by ruffians on the ocean,

From his kindred borne away,

Forced to render his devotion,

To relentless tyrants’ sway.

See! with ruthless hands they chain him!

Iron fetters bind his arms!

Better that they first had slain him,

And relieved from future harms.

See his naked body streaming

Rills of blood beneath the lash;

See his eyes indignant beaming,

Sparkling vengeance as they flash.

Though his body, scored with gashes,

Sinks beneath a brutal hand,

His soul still scorns the fiend-like lashes,

And turns to view his native land.

“O my country,” hear him calling,

“When, O when, the happy hour,

That the sailor saves from falling

In these demons’ lawless power?”

Can we hear his sad petition,

Echoing o’er our hills and dales,

And turn unmoved from his condition,

While his miseries he bewails?

Sons of freemen, arm for battle,

And avenge your brother’s cause!

Let your thundering cannon rattle

For our country and our laws!