Still let a mousing priesthood ply Their garbled text and gloss of sin, And make the lettered scroll deny Its living soul within: Still let the place-fed, titled knave Plead robbery's right with purchased lips, And tell us that our fathers gave For Freedom's pedestal, a slave, The frieze and moulding, chains and whips! But ye who own that Higher Law Whose tablets in the heart are set, Speak out in words of power and awe That God is living yet! Breathe forth once more those tones sublime Which thrilled the burdened prophet's lyre, And in a dark and evil time Smote down on Israel's fast of crime And gift of blood, a rain of fire! Oh, not for us the graceful lay To whose soft measures lightly move The footsteps of the faun and fay, O'er-locked by mirth and love! But such a stern and startling strain As Britain's hunted bards flung down From Snowden to the conquered plain, Where harshly clanked the Saxon chain, On trampled field and smoking town. By Liberty's dishonored name, By man's lost hope and failing trust, By words and deeds which bow with shame Our foreheads to the dust, By the exulting strangers' sneer, Borne to us from the Old World's thrones, And by their victims' grief who hear, In sunless mines and dungeons drear, How Freedom's land her faith disowns! Speak out in acts. The time for words Has passed, and deeds suffice alone; In vain against the clang of swords The wailing pipe is blown! Act, act in God's name, while ye may! Smite from the church her leprous limb! Throw open to the light of day The bondman's cell, and break away The chains the state has bound on him! Ho! every true and living soul, To Freedom's perilled altar bear The Freeman's and the Christian's whole Tongue, pen, and vote, and prayer! One last, great battle for the right-- One short, sharp struggle to be free! To do is to succeed--our fight Is waged in Heaven's approving sight; The smile of God is Victory. 1844.