The Trump of Jubilee

Harp of my boyhood! thou hast rung 
     To songs of liberty full oft;
And if in vain thou wert not strung 
With feeble hand untaught and young, 
     Still let thy numbers swell aloft;
And as again, another song
Shall thrill thy trembling chords along
     My unharmonious lyre—
May joyous freedom hover o'er
Thy strings, and as the notes I pour, 
     Send thee her soul of fire!
And thou, fond Hope, thy presence bring,
And let the willing spirit spring
Exultant on thy buoyant wing,
And upward soar, unchained and free,
Above the dark reality,
     That broodeth here below;
For why should freedom’s hymnings swell
Increasing on her harp to tell
     Of freedom’s overthrow;
Why should her bards for ever mourn
     The darkness of our moral night,
When cloudless day shall soon return
And Freedom’s glorious sunlight burn
     Unquenchable and bright?
Let others pour the song of sadness,
But mine shall be the notes of gladness.

Hark! in our valleys, on our hills,
     O’er caverned rock, and mountain lone,
Through all the quivering air there thrills
     A deep and mighty trumpet tone.
More startling than the unearthly sound, 
     When o'er the sullen thunder-cloud,
     Spirit to spirit calls aloud,
Its voice is echoing round.
From where the torrent of the lakes 
The wild and hoarse Niagara breaks,
     Chainless and strong and free,
O'er river, mountain, plain, and rock, 
     All downward to the rolling sea, 
Rings fiercer than the tempest-shock
     The Trump of Jubilee.
It sends no deadly tones afar
To wake the frantic yell of war, 
But long and loud it pours abroad 
     A summons o'er a land of slaves, 
     To call them from their living graves,
     And bring from darker depths of woe, 
     The panting, fettered soul, into 
The freedom of the sons of God.
A slumbering land hath heard the sound, 
     And starting from her deep repose,
Shakes off the fetters that have bound 
Her spirit in its sleep profound;
As if the angel's Trump of Doom 
Had burst the portals of the tomb, 
And upward from the starless gloom, 
That slumbered o'er their chilly bed, 
The cold, and pale, and shrouded dead 
     Once more to life and light arose.
Up from the eternal shade, that broods 
Among the dark Floridian woods, 
That lend a covert to the poor,
     Despised, and stricken Indian —
A refuge from the evil doer,
     Where man may flee the wrath of man,
Whose dim and leafy aisles resound
The baying of the savage hound, 
     And yell of fiercer men, 
And echo to the din of war, 
The shot, the groan, the fierce hurrah, 
The fearful war-whoop, when for life 
Or death, the reeking scalping-knife
Gleams horrid o'er the bloodhound strife —
Mid triumph shout, or rallying word,
     Along the smoking glen,
Loud booming over all is heard
That voice which bids the world be free, 
The trumpet tone of Jubilee.
At once the spoiler's hand is staid, 
     He pauses in his fell career,
Down falls to earth the dripping blade,
     The tomahawk and spear;
And where the tide of slaughter ran, 
Man meets and owns a friend in man, 
For Freedom hath a power to turn
     The tide of carnage in its track, 
And where the fires of vengeance burn, 
     To bear the hand of ruin back.
Not for the sable brow alone
     Is Liberty her garland twining, 
But for the poor and stricken one, 
Beneath the weight of outrage done, 
     And bitter trials pining;
Where'er oppression's iron hand
     Hath torn the wreath from manhood's brow,
And to another's stern command
     One human soul is made to bow.
Through all the fair and far Southwest, 
     Rings o'er the hills that trumpet-tone, 
     Where circled with a blooming zone
     Upon her everlasting throne
Doth fair-haired summer rest;
Where Nature, o'er the sunny land,
     Her brightest, loveliest robe hath spread, 
And decked it with a cunning hand, 
     In colors that may never fade,
To rival all the hues of light
     That quiver on the sunset sky, 
Or folding clouds that skirt the night 
     And veil the western canopy.
The bondman by the water's side,
     Whose burning tears, in secret flowing,
Had rolled unheeded with the tide,
     As weary years in toil were going,
Hath caught the thrilling trumpet-sound, 
And rises, from his chains unbound,
     In limb and spirit free.
Not the bright waters at his feet, 
That dancing to the music sweet 
Of quivering bough and answering bird, 
Or vine-leaf by the current stirred —
Glide ocean-ward to their retreat,
Chainless, and bright, and strong, and fleet,
     Are joyous now as he.
Where with the wail of Afric's daughters, 
     Nightly in mournful hymnings blending,
The murmur of Oconee's waters
     Is o'er the slumbering land ascending.
That trumpet-peal fills all the air, 
     And startles from her torturing thought
The anguished mother bending there
In stern communion with despair.
     As the glad sound her ear hath caught,
O! to the generous soul 't were worth 
The thousand meaner joys of earth, 
     By wealth and honor dearly bought, 
To see that ransomed mother now, 
Grief's record blotted from her brow, 
And hope rekindled in the soul, 
Drink deep of Joy's o'erflowing bowl.
She knows Oppression's night is o'er, 
Its shadows past to come no more, 
And as she clasps her infant boy 
     To her full heart, doth deeply feel 
     What bonds and chains may not reveal, -
The fullness of a mother's joy.
Right onward speeds the thrilling sound,
     The Carolinas hear the tone;
Their towering hills and depths profound
     Have lent their tongue to bear it on.
Above Virginia's reeking plains
Redoubled swell the echoing strains, 
     The trodden-down redeeming;
And o'er her mountain peaks, that mock 
The fury of the lightning shock,
When down the firm and pillared rock 
     The hissing bolt is gleaming,
A trumpet-peal rings strong and clear, 
That even the very dead might hear —
The buried fathers of the land, 
Who drew in wrath the avenging brand, 
When o'er the unconquerable West 
Oppression reared his purple crest 
     In pomp of regal pride.
And as the deepening signal rings, 
Victorious Freedom upward springs, 
Rejoicing, on her snow-white wings,
     Her tresses floating wide —
While Tyranny with shriek and yell 
Reels backward to his home in Hell, 
     Born down on sable pinion, 
And ransomed thousands join to swell 
The shout of joy o'er hill and dell, 
     Through Slavery's " Old Dominion."
O'er all the fair and sunny land, 
Made barren by Oppression's hand, 
Where over every vale and height, 
A southern sun is smiling bright, 
Though sorrow's saddening moans be rife, 
     In every perfumed zephyr's breath,
That trumpet-tone awakes to life
     Its thousands from their more than death.
And where oppression's temple stood, 
     O'er shadowing with its horrid wall
The sons of robbery and blood,
     Behold the greatness of its fall!
Upon its ruins wild and dark
     Pure Freedom plants her spotless banner, 
And o'er the crash and tumult, hark!
     How rings to heaven that loud hosannah!
For lo! a million fetters break, 
And the galled limbs at once forsake, 
And over hill and mountain top 
A million shouts of joy go up 
From men, who long have drunk the cup
Of bitterness, whom years of woe 
     And untold wrongs have spoiled and crushed,
Till meted out and trodden low,
     Purple and warm their life-blood gushed.
Before that deepening trumpet-blast
The blood-red scourge to earth is cast, 
And beauty in eternal youth
Reigns over all the sunny south, 
And o'er our own rock-girdled hills, 
Whence leap to life the joyous rills, 
     That rushing to the sea,
Clap their glad hands, and onward sweep 
Their bubbling waters to the deep, 
     Bright, beautiful and free,
The victor's trump of Freedom rings
     The note of perfect liberty!
Up from his bitter bondage springs
The wasted hireling now, and flings
     His golden chains away,
And the rejected poor man feels
The heavyweight of galling heels,
Removing from their cruel rest,
Upon his scarred and bleeding breast, 
And rising from his fall abject, 
He stands in manhood's strength erect,
     Blessing the new-born day.
Still up and onward rolls that sound, —
     God speed the thrilling voice!
Till to the earth's remotest bound
     Shall every soul rejoice.
Lo now, the renovating tone,
Borne by the viewless breezes on,
Whose home no living soul can trace,
Is ringing through the "hallowed place," 
Where man with heaven-defying pride, 
     That trembled not to trample on 
     God's image, even before his throne,
In human temples sanctified,
     To service of the Holy One,
Hath said to him who came to bow
Before the throne a darker brow,
"Off, I am holier than thou!" 
And even there hath dared to reign 
     O'er man as with an iron rod, 
And with an impious hand profane 
     The holier temple of our God: —
There Freedom waves her spotless plumes,
     As thrills her startling trumpet-call
     Along the arched and echoing wall, 
     And as the worshippers adore 
     A righteous God, their shrines before,
Love warms, and Truth each soul illumes;
Truth perfect, that hath made them free,
Love, pure as mortal love can be.
Brothers unscorned, with brothers bow
Before the sacred altar now,
No color, sect, or station known, 
For in Christ Jesus all are one.