Ode for the Liberation of T. W. Dorr [a.k.a. Ode for the Democratic Mass Meeting]

     Come from your thousand homes, ye free,
     If ye unfettered hearts there be;
Arouse! your trial hour is come.
     Ah, now while rampant power grown bold,
     Guards well in black-mouthed dungeon hold
A People’s choice, shall they be dumb?

     Ha! ye—a freeman’s name who boast,
     Will ye advance to danger’s post
With pledged defence, your chosen one,
     Then when the night of adverse power
     Pours down its veiled thunder-shower,
Leave him to bear its wrath alone?

     Ah, no! ye might not thus betray
     The promise of a brighter day
And shame the many hearts ye bear?
     I see in every kindling eye
     The daring soul of liberty
Burn with indignant flashes there.

     Now God be witness to your faith
     Well kept and swerveless to the death,
In this day’s fearless words of fire;
     And be each gallant spirit strong
     In bold rebukings of the wrong
Till cowardly Revenge expire.

     Shall Freedom’s lava-blood be cool,
     And stagnate like a rotting pool,
When chains are bound on Freedom’s son?
     And like a feeble, love-sick girl,
     Her white arms on her bosom curl
While damning shame her is done?

     O, never! while one heart of man
     Still keeps the chainless tide which ran
In bosoms of the olden time;
     Never while right is bow’d before 
     The iron heel of tyrant power,
Girt round with all its mail of crime.

     Her voice deep-toned as from the grave,
     In all the spirits of the brave,
Shall break Oppression’s fitful sleep,
     And ye may see the trembler grasp
     His fire-lock with convulsive clasp,
As terrors through his bosom sweep.

     Then shall ye know that he is weak.
     Aye, weaker than the words ye speak
In armless peace, yet sternly just:
     Ah; speak then, for the captive Brave,
     Recall him from his living grave;—
That summons may be heard, and must.

     O more eterne and stronger far,
     Than granite pile or iron bar,
Is the Free Man’s indignant thought,
     Burning like Heaven’s descending flash,
     The prison walls in earth to dash,
And melt its jarring bolts to naught.

     Speak! in the name of God and Right,
     Launch out your fire-thought on the night
Of shameless wrong and tyrant power;
     Speak with the voice of Heaven’s own bolt,
     Till even the very stones revolt,
And leap from dungeon-keep and tower.

     A rallied People’s startling cry
     From hill-tops thrilling to the sky,
And quivering over all the air,
     Will pierce that prison’s granite ear,
     With tones the dead cold stones may hear,
And cheer the Tyrant’s Victim there.

     Let coward wrong in fear be stay’d
     On musket-shot and red-wet blade,
Ever the trembling despot’s prop;
     But on the fleshless arm of Right
     Lean ye, and mock their banded might,
Bidding their victim’s fetters drop.

     Spurning oppression’s sterner part,
     Appeal to man’s almighty Heart.
Obedient to its holiest law,
     And pour your shout above the din
     Of musket-shot and culverin—
“God save the immolated Dorr!”

     Brute hearts, whose only trust is set
     In sulphur smoke and bayonet,
Shall cower before your moral might;
     While Pity’s cry, and Truth’s appeal,
     Victorious over lead and steel,
Call back the buried Brave to light.