The First of August

Earth! from your farthest verge rejoice!
     Behold the day of freedom dawning;
Let all your millions raise the voice 
     Of welcome to the coming morning!
Wide o'er the world join all the living, 
     In songs of praises and thanksgiving!
Ye nations, send the voice abroad, 
     And pour the joy from shore to shore;
Shout loud hosannas unto God, 
     God in the Highest evermore!
His arm Omnipotent hath wrought
     Redemption for the down-trod ones;
Freedom for tongue, and limb, and thought, 
     For Afric's crushed and bleeding sons, 
Where flower-wreathed Summer ever smiles 
In beauty on the Indian isles, 
And breaks the Atlantic's chainless wave 
On Tyranny's eternal grave.

Now bursts the morning light in glory, 
O’er hill and rock and promontory,
Though long has Freedom’s burning sun
Been struggling through the rayless dun,
AS comes the morn when clouds of night
     Hand dark with all their skirts unfurl’d,
No dim and red it meets the sight,
     Then streams in splendor o’er the world,—
So Freedom’s morn is breaking forth,
Broad gleaming o’er the astonished earth,
Her sun in glory bursting through
     The clouds that veiled its radiant form,
Pictures, in every rain-bow hue,
     God’s promise on the flying storm,
While Backward rolls Oppression’s flood
Retiring with its waves of blood.

Old England, from her rocky throne,
     The Queen of Empires—girt with waves,
Proclaims, as in the thunder's tone, 
     Deliverance to a land of slaves.
From Isle to Isle the voice flies round, 
     Borne onward by the ocean-blast:
Chains fall to earth before the sound, 
     And scourges to the dust are cast;
Joy fills the islands of the sea, 
For Afric's injured sons are free!
They toss their sinewy arms in air,—
No clanking fetter-links are there,
No longer now the gory scourge, 
To weary toil, their song shall urge;
Brother from brother, friend from friend,
No more may brutal robbers rend;
And o'er the thirsty plains no more
The toiling bondman's blood shall pour:
But ransomed men shall till the lands, 
With grateful hearts and willing hands, 
For cruel Slavery, crushed and gone,
Can know no resurrection morn, 
And everlasting Night shall wave 
His ensign o'er its horrid grave, 
While Freedom's songs swell on the air 
Once stirred by wails of deep despair.

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

The sun went down upon the waves, 
     Sighs rose upon the calm of night, 
Groans swelled above a land of slaves, 
     Tears glittered in the sick moonlight;
For thousands were beneath the chain;
     Years upon years had long rolled on;
Months swept away and came again;
     But not one fetter-link had gone.
Daily the circling sun came back, 
But brought no joy along its track:
Morrn gave the task, the lash, the cry:
Night woke the low and secret sigh;
The only hope that cheers the oppressed, 
Once lit, was quenched within the breast;
Strong hearts were wrung by wrong, and broken, 
     Which once for Liberty beat high;
Vain sought the bondman for the token, 
     Of his deliverance drawing nigh.

And now the sun went down agen [sic]
     From hills aud valleys ever green, 
And chains and whips and sorrowing men 
     On all those lovely Isles were seen.
But when that burning sun drove back
His fiery coursers on their track, 
The wheel and bound and joyous cry.
The tossing arm and flashing eye, 
The shout, the high, triumphal song 
Which rang, the echoing hills along,
Stirring the air with loud hosannas 
That shook the light folds of their banners;
All told his rays no longer fell
     On clanking chain and fetters gory;
That Liberty had triumphed well, 
And borne Oppression down, to yell 
His anguish in the nether hell,
While rose the joyous anthem-swell, 
O'er verdant plain, o'er rock and dell 
And answering mountain-top, to tell 
     Or freedom's birth and Freedom’s glory.

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

But when shall Freedom's kindling sun
     Illume our long-benighted land?
When shall the bondman's toil be done, 
     That he, unchained, erect shall stand?
The coiling scourge, that, ceaseless, drank 
His life; the hateful fetter's clank;
The bartering of souls away:
The blood-hound on his human prey;
The blood of guiltless millions spilt;
All, all proclaim our damning guilt.
And when,—oh when, shall Freedom's morn, 
Bright-beaming o'er our mountains, dawn?
When shall the sorrowing slaves be MEN?
When shall oppression cease?—Oh when?