BOSTON HYMN

READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863

THE word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the seaside,

And filled their hearts with flame.

God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;

Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.

Think ye I made this ball

A field of havoc and war,

Where tyrants great and tyrants small Might harry the weak and poor?

My angel, his name is Freedom,Choose him to be your king;

He shall cut pathways east and west And fend you with his wing.

Lo! I uncover the land

Which I hid of old time in the West, As the sculptor uncovers the statue When he has wrought his best;

I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the seas
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds and the boreal fleece.

I will divide my goods;

Call in the wretch and slave:
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.

I will have never a noble,
No lineage counted great;

Fishers and choppers and ploughmen

Shall constitute a state.

Go, cut down trees in the forest
And trim the straightest boughs;

Cut down trees in the forest

And build me a wooden house.

Call the people together,

The

young men and the sires, The digger in the harvest-field, Hireling and him that hires;

And here in a pine state-house
They shall choose men to rule
In every needful faculty,

In church and state and school.

Lo, now! if these poor men
Can govern the land and sea

And make just laws below the sun,
As planets faithful be.

'Tis nobleness to serve;

Help them who cannot help again :
Beware from right to swerve.

I break your bonds and masterships, And I unchain the slave:

Free be his heart and hand henceforth As wind and wandering wave.

I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
As much as he is and doeth,
So much he shall bestow.

But, laying hands on another
To coin his labor and sweat,
He goes in pawn to his victim
For eternal years in debt.

To-day 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.

VOLUNTARIES

I

Low and mournful be the strain,
Haughty thought be far from me;
Tones of penitence and pain,
Moanings of the tropic sea;
Low and tender in the cell
Where a captive sits in chains,
Crooning ditties treasured well
From his Afric's torrid plains.
Sole estate his sire bequeathed,
Hapless sire to hapless son,
Was the wailing song he breathed,
And his chain when life was done.

-

What his fault, or what his crime? Or what ill planet crossed his prime? Heart too soft and will too weak To front the fate that crouches near, Dove beneath the vulture's beak; Will song dissuade the thirsty spear ? Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, Displaced, disfurnished here,

His wistful toil to do his best

Chilled by a ribald jeer.