"Let Us Alone"
“LET US ALONE! The unclean spirits cried—
“Why coms’t thou to torment us ere the time?”
“Let us alone!” still adding crime to crime,
Shrieks the arch-traitor and Liberticide.
Who, drunk with hate, his country hath defied,
And, with confederate thieves, would drag her down
From the high places of her old renown,
And, with her ruin, sate his devilish pride.
No, Rebel, no!—while knaves are held in scorn,
And plotters of sedition are abhorred;
While good men shudder at the wretch forsworn.
Whose perjuries mock the vengeance of the Lord;
While Justice lives, and God maintains his throne,
The devils are “cast out”—not “left alone.”
- Title
- "Let Us Alone"
- First Line
- "Let us alone!," the unclean spirits cried--
- Creator
-
William Henry Burleigh
- Bibliographic Citation
- Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wisconsin), June 7, 1861, p. 4
- The Free Press (Oconomowoc, Wisconsin), June 21, 1861, p. 1.
- Date
- 1861
- Period
- Late
- Subject
- Civil War
- Sonnet
- Comments
- Built around a statement by Jefferson Davis that the South merely wanted "to be let alone"
-
Opening quotes:
"And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice,
"Saying let us alone: what have we to do, with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou then come to destroy us?" - Luke, iv, 23, 24.
"And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.
"And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" - MAtthew, viii, 28, 29.
"All we ask, is to be left alone" - JEFF. DAVIS. - Vintage William H. Burleigh in its anger at slavery
- Rating
- ★★★★
- Media
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"Let Us Alone"