James Russell Lowell Freedom Poems

THEY are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
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Men! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
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Careless seems the great Avenger;
History’s lessons but recorded
One death-grapple in the darkness
“Twixt old systems and the Word;
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