For this, like royal Cæsar, within the Senate Hall, On the noble head of Sumner did the blows of Slavery fall; For this, that band of heroes, with their Spartan chief, John Brown, As a sacrifice to Freedom, their precious lives laid down. And for this you bore and suffered, “till forbearance ceased to be A virtue,” and High Heaven called on you to be free. Then, once more, the blood of heroes leaped like fire within each vein, And the long-slumbering Lion rose, and, wrathful, shook his mane. O! the page of future history shall, with truthful record, tell How you met the fearful issue, how bravely and how well; How you gave uncounted treasure from out your toil-won hoard, And how, as free as water, heroic blood was poured;-- How Grant, with stern persistence, smote the foe-*men day by day; How Sheridan and Sherman urged their victorious way; How Farragut and Porter swept triumphant o’er the sea, And how the gallant Winslow won _his_ glorious victory;-- And alas! how noble Ellsworth fell in his youthful pride, And Winthrop, Baker, Lyon, for Freedom bled and died; And true, brave hearts unnumbered, before the cannon’s breath, On the wild, red sea of slaughter, swept down the tide of death;-- And how, amid the tumult, in every battle pause, Was heard the cry for “Justice to the bondman and his cause.” O! your fathers’ slumbering ashes cried, “Amen!” from out each grave, When your grand old Constitution gave freedom to the slave. And, as the glorious tidings upon the nation fell, Satan, with all his legions, went howling down to Hell. Of crime and blood no longer could he freely drink his fill, For the curséd demon, Slavery, had best performed his will. Let words of deep thanksgiving blend with the tears you shed For the hosts of noble martyrs who in Freedom’s cause have bled. Though they fell before the sickle which reaps the battle-plain, Yet, to-day, they know in heaven, that they perished not in vain. Your nation’s glorious Eagle, with an unfaltering flight, Hath perched at length, in triumph, on Freedom’s loftiest height; The stars upon your banner burn with a fairer flame, And the radiant stripes no longer are emblems of your shame. The slave, made like his master, “in the image of his God,” Shall bare his back no longer to the oppressor’s rod; His night of pain and anguish, of want and woe, has past, And Freedom’s radiant morning has dawned on him at last. O thou Recording Angel! turn to that page whereon Is traced, in undimmed brightness, the name of Washington, And, with thy pen immortal, in characters of flame, To stand henceforth and ever, write also Lincoln’s name!