Oh great Jehovah! God of love,
Thou monarch of the earth and sky,
Canst thou from thy great throne above
Look down with an unpitying eye? -
...
America, it is to thee,
Thou boasted land of liberty, -
It is to thee I raise my song,
Thou land of blood, and crime, and wrong.
...
How long, oh gracious God! how long
Shall power lord it over right?
The feeble, trampled by the strong,
Remain in slavery's gloomy night.
...
Yes! strike again that sounding string,
And let the wildest numbers roll;
Thy song of fiercest passion sing -
It breathes responsive to my soul!
...
In the bright dreams of early youth,
I strung my lyre, and waked a strain,
In praise of friendship, love and truth,
...
I love the man whose lofty mind
On God and its own strength relies;
Who seeks the welfare of his kind,
And dare be honest though he dies;
...
There's music wheresoe'er we roam -
'T is heard in ocean's crested foam,
And in the billows' deafening roar,
Which madly burst upon the shore:
...
The great, the good, the just, the true,
Has yielded up his latest breath;
The noblest man our country knew,
Bows to the ghastly monster, Death
...
From bright West Indies' sunny seas,
Comes, borne upon the balmy breeze,
The joyous shout, the gladsome tone,
Long in those bloody isles unknown;
...
When gathered in the courts above,
Before Jehovah's burning throne,
Archangels own his boundless love,
And cast their crowns of glory down;
...