'The Glorious Fourth'

‘Tis done, and Freedom's natal day
Once more hath come and passed away 
The thundering cannon and the drum, 
     The bells and every martial tone
Which o'er the trembling mountain come,
     In echoes faint are heard alone:
And, with the clamor of the crowd, 
     Have died upon the smoky air, 
The lying word, the vauntings proud.
     And hypocritic prayer,
Poured from a thousand tongues abroad.
To mock the living truth, and God.
‘Tis done, 'tis done! let patriots mourn 
     The pageant gone, with solemn voice;
And men true-hearted, in return,
     That all is past again, rejoice.
Now let the sons of seventy six,
     Your thunderings have called up here,
Gro lo their lowly rest, and fix 
     Their couches for another year:
Nor break till then, with martial tread, 
The slumbers of your honored dead.

Hurrah! hurrah, for Liberty!
     Our nation's glorious heritage
“All [white] men are created free!”  [GSB ellipses]
     And we will send to every age,
The freedom which our fathers bought 
     With blood and bayonet and thunder, 
When they, like loving Christians, fought, 
     And hewed their foemen's ranks asunder.
Hurrah! hurrah! shout loud and louder
     For freedom, on this sacred day
Made consecrate with rum and powder,
     Since erst the sniveling bastard lay
[TWO LINES INDECIPHERABLE]
     The boldest of a noble band,
Who drew the king defying ??
     To win for ??? cup of tea,
Or perish in the glorious war:
     Shout for your blood-bought liberty
Ring for your sire the loud ??  

Rejoice in freedom! — groveling slaves
Who clank your fetters o'er their graves, 
When on the “GLORIOUS FOURTH” ye come 
To honor, with your guns and rum!
Shout "Liberty for aye!"—then fall 
Submiss before King Alcohol.
Yea, tell the freedom of your land,—
     The freest soil beneath the heaven,—
While wailings rise along your strand, 
     From long degraded millions, driven 
Through years of untold wo, to toil 
Upon your Slavery-blighted soil!
Lift your red hands in thanks to God 
     That all are free, while ye have crushed 
A brother to the reeking sod
     Where your own fathers' life-blood gushed;
Blood poured for Freedom, on the plains 
Which now the scourge-drawn torrent stains.
Poured out from Afric's bursting veins !
Thank God for Liberty; your shout 
Upon the wail-fraught breeze send out;
While curses, crime-deserved and deep,
     Wrung from your tortured brother's soul,-
Hang heavy o'er your fields to sweep 
     In vengeance, as the clouds which roll 
     Where thunders echo to the pole, 
And the red fires of ruin leap.

Up, ere the wrath of God hath spread 
     In flame and utter desolation!
And, till the burning bolts have sped 
     Rejoice that ye're so free a nation!
Oh, virtuous land! of all the earth 
     The queen, the paragon and pride!
Where white-robed Innocence goes forth,
     With Purity and Peace allied!
Shout for your crimeless land forever, 
     While foul licentiousness and death
Sweep o'er the nation like a river, 
     Burning and blasting as the breath 
Of broad Zahara's hot simoon 
Rolling, its waveless sea aboon;
And hells by fiends incarnate lit, 
     From every valley send their glare, 
With flames which mock the nether pit, 
     And deeds which shame the foulest there,
Devouring, on their altar-stones,
Earth's fairest, loveliest, frailest ones.
‘Tis fitting that upon this day
     Ye should proclaim your pride and glory.
And tall of freedom, while your prey 
     Lies fettered, groaning, crushed and gory.
And well ye praise your virtuous land,
     Where VICE hath brought foul death among you, 
Whose aspic votaries, on each hand,
     Even to the very heart have stung you.

Oh, shame! consuming shame be thine 
     Columbia, till thy crimes are banished;
Till all the lying herds that whine 
     Of ‘Liberty and right,’ have vanished;
And not a slave is left to tread 
The soil whereon your fathers bled;
And Meekness, Love, and Temperance.
And Virtue, o'er your fields advance.
Then, when the living truth hath won 
     Salvation to your land again, 
And Slavery's iron reign is done, 
     And broken are the scourge and chain,—
May rise your nation, purer yet
     Than when your battling fathers bought
Redemption with the bayonet,
     Upon the crimson fields they fought;
And win a never-dying name,
Linked by good deeds to lasting fame.