Liberty Poem by Alfred Gibbs Campbell

What! boast of Freedon, while ye bind
Three millions of our race in chains,
Whom ye have doomed to every kind
Of outrage, torture, pains!


Prate loud of Liberty! and steal
The infant from his cradle-bed;
And o'er him let the iron heel
Of foul Oppression tread!


Boast of your Liberty! then tear
The baby from its mother's breast!
Heed not her cries, or tears, or prayer -
Stripes may put them to rest!


Praise God for Freedom! and consign
The maiden pure to Lust's embrace!
Body and soul is she not thine -
Bought in the market-place?


Bless God you 're free! then sunder all
Affection's dearest, holiest ties!
What right have slaves to feel at all?
What claim to sympathies?


Have ye not heard God's priest declare
That they are slaves by Heaven's decree?
That he has doomed them all to wear
The badge of slavery?


Who then shall dare resist the Lord,
Or fight against His holy will?
Do not th' expounders of His word
Say, slaves shall be slaves still?


Hold, hypocrites! these priestly lies
Shall be no refuge in that day
When your huge tower of blasphemies
Shall crumble all away


Before the power of Truth, which God
Shall yet make Sovereign of the world,
Scattering its healing life abroad,
While Wrong 's to ruin hurl'd.


July 4, 1853.