Lo, now! if these poor men

Can govern the land and sea,

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

And ye shall succor men;

"T is 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.

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.

ODE

SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857.

O TENDERLY the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to town,
Our pulses are not less,

The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
Which children's voices bless.

For He that flung the broad blue fold
O'er-mantling land and sea,

One third part of the sky unrolled
For the banner of the free.

The men are ripe of Saxon kind

To build an equal state,

To take the statute from the mind,
And make of duty fate.

Present and Past in under-song,
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.

For sea and land don't understand,
Nor skies without a frown

See rights for which the one hand fights
By the other cloven down.

Be just at home; then write your scroll Of honor o'er the sea,

And bid the broad Atlantic roll

A ferry of the free.

And, henceforth, there shall be no chain, Save underneath the sea

The wires shall murmur through the main Sweet songs of LIBERTY.

The conscious stars accord above,

The waters wild below,

And under, through the cable wove,

Her fiery errands go.

For He that worketh high and wise,
Nor pauses in his plan,

Will take the sun out of the skies

Ere freedom out of man.

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.

Great men in the Senate sate,