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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.

LIBERTY FOR ALL

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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Whom late the Nation he had led,
With ashes on her head,

Wept with the passion of an angry grief:
Forgive me, if from present things I turn
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote,

And cannot make a man

Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote:

For him her Old-World molds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
15 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see

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Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be
Not lured by any cheat of birth,

But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!

They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust

25 In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.
His was no lonely mountain peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
30 A sea mark now, now lost in vapor's blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,

Yet also nigh to Heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,

35 Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of serf and peer

Could Nature's equal scheme deface
And thwart her genial will;

Here was a type of the true elder race,

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.

I praise him not; it were too late;

And some innative weakness there must be

In him who condescends to victory

Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.

So always firmly he:

He knew to bide his time,
And can his fame abide,

Still patient in his simple faith sublime,

Till the wise years decide.

Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last silence comes!

These all are gone, and standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY (1867)1

BY FRANCIS MILES FINCH°

By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,

Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,

Asleep are the ranks of the dead:

Under the sod and the dew,

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Waiting the Judgment Day;

Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

1 Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company from F. M. Finch's poems, "The Blue and the Gray and Other Poems."

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