“Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung;” Doomed to a state of slavery, Compared with which the darkest night Of European tyranny, Seems brilliant as the noonday light. While politicians void of shame, Cry this is law and liberty, The clergy lend the awful name And sanction of the Deity, To help sustain the monstrous wrong, And crush the weak beneath the strong. Lord, thou hast said the tyrant’s ear Shall not be always closed to thee, But that thou wilt in wrath appear, And set the trembling captive free. And even now dark omens rise To those who either see or hear, And gather o’er the darkening skies The threatening signs of fate and fear; Not like the plagues which Egypt saw, When rising in an evil hour, A rebel ’gainst the “higher law,” And glorying in her mighty power,— Saw blasting fire, and blighting hail, Sweep o’er her rich and fertile vale, And heard on every rising gale Ascend the bitter mourning wail; And blighted herd, and blasted plain, Through all the land the first-born slain, Her priests and magi made to cower In witness of a higher power, And darkness like a sable pall Shrouding the land in deepest gloom, Sent sadly through the minds of all, Forebodings of approaching doom. What though no real shower of fire Spreads o’er this land its withering blight, Denouncing wide Jehovah’s ire Like that which palsied Egypt’s might; And though no literal darkness spreads Upon the land its sable gloom, And seems to fling around our heads The awful terrors of the tomb; Yet to the eye of him who reads The fate of nations past and gone, And marks with care the wrongful deeds By which their power was overthrown,— Worse plagues than Egypt ever felt Are seen wide-spreading through the land, Announcing that the heinous guilt On which the nation proudly stands, Has risen to Jehovah’s throne, And kindled his Almighty ire, And broadcast through the land has sown The seeds of a devouring fire; Blasting with foul pestiferous breath, The fountain springs of moral life, And planting deep the seeds of death, And future germs of deadly strife; And moral darkness spreads its gloom Over the land in every part, And buries in a living tomb