And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read, How the British Regulars fired and fled How the farmers gave them ball for ball From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
But laying hands on another To coin his labor and sweat, He goes in pawn to his victim For eternal years in debt.
Today unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!
Pay ransom to the owner, And fill the bag to the brim.
Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him.
O North! give him beauty for rags, And honor, O South! for his shame; Nevada! coin thy golden crags With Freedom's image and name.
Up! and the dusky race That sat in darkness long Be swift their feet as antelopes, And as behemoth strong.
Come, East and West and North, By races, as snow-flakes, And carry my purpose forth, Which neither halts nor shakes.
My will fulfilled shall be, For, in daylight or in dark, My thunderbolt has eyes to see His way home to the mark.
BY WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON °
THEY tell me, Liberty! that in thy name I may not plead for all the human race; That some are born to bondage and disgrace, Some to a heritage of woe and shame,
And some to power supreme, and glorious fame: With my whole soul I spurn the doctrine base, And, as an equal brotherhood, embrace All people, and for all fair freedom claim! Know this, O man! whate'er thy earthly fate God never made a tyrant nor a slave:
Woe, then, to those who dare to desecrate His glorious image! - for to all he gave Eternal rights, which none may violate;
And, by a mighty hand, the oppressed He yet shall save.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1865)
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL°
LIFE may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate;
But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds,
Who stand self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth,
Fed from within with all the strength he needs. Such was he, our martyr chief,
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