America, A Picture

Proud, impious land, and most abhorred of God;
     Grinding her iron heel into the flesh
     Of man, while oozing from each purple mesh
Of the coiled fetter, drips the warm life-blood,
And trickles down upon the smoking Sod,
     She lifts her hands, with murder reeking fresh,
     And boasts of Freedom while she shakes abroad
The clanking fetter and the iron rod;
     And mocking heaven with blasphemies, which well
     Might freeze to stone the burning pulse of Hell
With their cold horrors,—thanks the Power above,
     For her high freedom and the strength to quell
Kingly Oppression; praying that sweet Love
By her gorged Eagle’s side, might rest he like a Dove.