Here's to our Goddess, Liberty,
Idol of bronze and stone!
May she awake to life some day
And let her charms be known.

Fair land of peace! - to Britain's rule and throne
Adherent still, yet happier than alone,
And free as happy, and as brave as free,
Proud are thy children - justly proud, of thee!

Thou hast no streams renowned in classic lore,
No vales where fabled heroes moved of yore,
No hills where Poesy enraptured stood,
No mythic fountains, no enchanted wood;
But unadorned, rough, cold, and often stern,
The careless eye to other lands might turn,
And seek, where Nature's bloom is more intense,
Softer delights to charm the eye of sense.

But we who know thee, proudly point the hand
Where thy broad rivers roll serenely grand -
Where, in still beauty 'neath our northern sky,
Thy lordly lakes in solemn grandeur lie, -
Where old Niagara's awful voice has given
...

To sit in silence when we should protest
Makes cowards out of men.    The human race
Has climbed on protest.    Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance and lust
The Inquisition yet would serve the law
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many.    Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle; Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills,
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child-bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Therefore do I protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong which holds one rusted lin...

    Hail, glorious morning of Columbia's birth,
        Celestial dawn of freedom! There shall be
    In recognition of thy wondrous worth
        By mighty millions this side of the sea,
        Triumphant crowns of laurel wreathed for thee!
    Welcome thy mammoth pageants, welcome all
        The choral songs and melodies of glee,
    The swelling shouts of praise that gladly fall
    From mighty multitudes in anthems national!

    High hangs the sacred banner, and the stars
        Dance in the sunshine, while the breezes play
    Around the glory of the hallowed bars
        Gleaming in white and crimson; music gay
        Floats from the patriot host and cheers array
    Great shouts around its foldings. Long in state,
        Flag of the brave and free...

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
--Goldsmith.


I fear the palace of the rich,
    I fear the hovel of the poor;
Though fortified by moat and ditch,
    The castle strong could not endure;
Nor can the squalid hovel be
    A source of strength, and those who cause
This widening discrepancy
    Infringe on God's eternal laws.

The heritage of man, the earth,
    Was framed for homes, not vast estates;
A lowering scale of human worth
    Each generation demonstrates,
Which feels the landlord's iron hand,
    And hopeless, plod with effort brave;
Who love no home can love no land;
    These own no home, until the grave.

The nation's strongest safeguards lie
In free...

To sit in silence when we should protest
Makes cowards out of men.    The human race
Has climbed on protest.    Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance and lust
The Inquisition yet would serve the law
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many.    Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle; Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills,
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child-bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires,
Therefore do I protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong which holds one rusted lin...

The spirit of freedom is born of the mountains,
In gorge and in cañon it hovers and dwells;
Pervading the torrents and crystalline fountains,
    Which dash through the valleys and forest clad dells.

The spirit of freedom, so firm and impliant,
    Is borne on the breeze, whose invisible waves
Descend from the mountain peaks, stern and defiant--
    Created for freemen, but never for slaves.

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set
With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades,
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old,
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of liberty.

Oh FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man...

Bearer of Freedom's holy light,
Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,
The foe of all which pains the sight,
Or wounds the generous ear of God!
Beautiful yet thy temples rise,
Though there profaning gifts are thrown;
And fires unkindled of the skies
Are glaring round thy altar-stone.
Still sacred, though thy name be breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed
Around the haughty brows of Pride.
Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time!
The faith in which my father stood,
Even when the sons of Lust and Crime
Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood!
Still to those courts my footsteps turn,
For through the mists which darken there,
I see the flame of Freedom burn,
The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!
The g...

Rebellion is my theme all day;
I only wish ‘twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may?)
A little nearer home.


Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t’other side the Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.


When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.


But O! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flowers she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about your ears.


Such civil broils are my delight,
Though some folks can’t endure them,
Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure them.


A rope! I wish we patriots had
Such strings for all who need...

We give thy natal day to hope,
O Country of our love and prayer!
Thy way is down no fatal slope,
But up to freer sun and air.
Tried as by furnace-fires, and yet
By God's grace only stronger made,
In future tasks before thee set
Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid.
The fathers sleep, but men remain
As wise, as true, and brave as they;
Why count the loss and not the gain?
The best is that we have to-day.
Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime,
Withhin thy mighty bounds transpires,
With speed defying space and time
Comes to us on the accusing wires;
While of thy wealth of noble deeds,
Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold,
The love that pleads for human needs,
The wrong redressed, but half is told!
We read each felon's chronicle,
His acts, hi...

"With a cold and wintry noon-light.
On its roofs and steeples shed,
Shadows weaving with t e sunlight
From the gray sky overhead,
Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread.
Through this broad street, restless ever,
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river;
Wealth and fashion side by side;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.
Underneath yon dome, whose coping
Springs above them, vast and tall,
Grave men in the dust are groping.
For the largess, base and small,
Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall.
Base of heart! They vilely barter
Honor's wealth for party's place;
Step by step on Freedom's charter
Leaving footprints of disgrace;
For to-day's ...

We honour Brother Jonathan,
    For what he has done and dared;
Nobly and firmly he hath stood
    His freeborn rights to guard.

And when we see him, go ahead,
    We are not with envy vexed;
We wish him all prosperity
    Yet will not be annexed.

We know he has much moral force;
    Much that is good and great;
Much enterprise and energy,
    Which we would imitate.

But there's upon his scutcheon stains,
    Which we lament to see;
And will not share--will not annex--
    Our soil and air are free--

And far more glorious is the flag
    Which o'er the Briton waves,
Than that whose stars of freedom shine
    Upon the stripes of slaves.

We love our Queen--we love our laws;
    We feel that we are free--

The land, that, from the rule of kings,
In freeing us, itself made free,
Our Old World Sister, to us brings
Her sculptured Dream of Liberty,

Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sands
Uplifted by the toil-worn slave,
On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands
We rear the symbol free hands gave.

O France, the beautiful! to thee
Once more a debt of love we owe
In peace beneath thy Colors Three,
We hail a later Rochambeau!

Rise, stately Symbol! holding forth
Thy light and hope to all who sit
In chains and darkness! Belt the earth
With watch-fires from thy torch uplit!

Reveal the primal mandate still
Which Chaos heard and ceased to be,
Trace on mid-air th' Eternal Will
In signs of fire: "Let man be free!"

Shine far, shine free...

God bless ye, brothers! in the fight
Ye 're waging now, ye cannot fail,
For better is your sense of right
Than king-craft's triple mail.
Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban,
More mighty is your simplest word;
The free heart of an honest man
Than crosier or the sword.
Go, let your blinded Church rehearse
The lesson it has learned so well;
It moves not with its prayer or curse
The gates of heaven or hell.
Let the State scaffold rise again;
Did Freedom die when Russell died?
Forget ye how the blood of Vane
From earth's green bosom cried?
The great hearts of your olden time
Are beating with you, full and strong;
All holy memories and sublime
And glorious round ye throng.
The bluff, bold men of Runnymede
Are with ye still in times like these;...

NEW CASTLE, JULY 4, 1878

For a hundred years the pulse of time
    Has throbbed for Liberty;
For a hundred years the grand old clime
    Columbia has been free;
        For a hundred years our country's love,
        The Stars and Stripes, has waved above.

Away far out on the gulf of years -
    Misty and faint and white
Through the fogs of wrong - a sail appears,
    And the Mayflower heaves in sight,
        And drifts again, with its little flock
        Of a hundred souls, on Plymouth Rock.

Do you see them there - as long, long since -
    Through the lens of History;
Do you see them there as their chieftain prints
    In the snow his bended knee,
        And lifts his voice through the wintry blast
        In thanks for a peace...

"ALL PERSON'S HELD AS SLAVES, within said designated States and parts of States, ARE, AND HENCEFORWARD SHALL BE FREE!"
- Proclamation of Emancipation, Jan. 1st, 1863.


"Shall be free! shall be free!" - lo, the strong winds have caught it,
    And borne it from hill top to hill top afar,
And echo to answering echo has taught it,
    Through the din of the conflict, the thunder of war!
It has flashed like the lightning from ocean to ocean,
    Across the black face of the skies it has blazed,
And strong men have thrilled with unwonted emotion,
    And shouted for joy as they listened and gazed!

"Shall be free! shall be free!" - the poor, manacled "chattel"
    Has caught the sweet word amid fetters and blows;
It has burst on his ear through the tumult of bat...

Token of friendship true and tried,
From one whose fiery heart of youth
With mine has beaten, side by side,
For Liberty and Truth;
With honest pride the gift I take,
And prize it for the giver's sake.
But not alone because it tells
Of generous hand and heart sincere;
Around that gift of friendship dwells
A memory doubly dear;
Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought,
With that memorial frail inwrought!
Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold,
And precious memories round it cling,
Even as the Prophet's rod of old
In beauty blossoming:
And buds of feeling, pure and good,
Spring from its cold unconscious wood.
Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand
Plucked from its burning! let it be
Dear as a jewel from the hand
Of a lost friend to me!...