"O we knew so well, dear Father,
When we answered to your call,
And the Southern Moloch stricken
Shook and tottered to his fall—
"O we knew so well you loved us,
And our hearts beat back to yours
With the rapturous adoration
That through all the years endures!
"Mothers, sisters bade us hasten
Sweethearts, wives with babe at breast;
For the Union, faith and freedom,
For our hero of the West!
"And we wrung forth victory blood-stained
From the desperate hands of Crime,
And our Cause blazed out Man's beacon
Through the endless future time!
"And forgiven, forever we bade it
Cease, that envy, hatred, strife,
As he willed, our murdered Father
That had sealed his love with life!
"O dear Father, was it thus, then?
Did we this but in a dream?
Is it real, hideous present?
Does our suffering only seem?
"Bend and listen, look and tell us!
Are these joyless toilers We?
Slaves more wretched, patient, piteous
Than the slaves we fought to free!
"Are these weak, worn girls and women
Those whose mothers yet can tell
How they kissed and clasped men god-like
With fierce faces fronting hell?
"Bend and listen, look and tell us!
Is this silent waste, possessed
By bloat thieves and their task-masters,
Thy free, thy fair, thy fearless West?
"Are these Eastern mobs of wage-slaves,
Are these cringing debauchees,
Sons of those who slung their rifles—
Shook the old Flag to the breeze?"
THE ANSWER.
"Men and boys, O fathers, brothers,
Burst these fetters round you bound!
Women, sisters, wives and mothers,
Lift your faces from the ground!
"O Democracy, O People,
East and West and North and South,
Rise together, one for ever,
Strike this Crime upon the mouth!
"Bid them not, the men who loved you,
Those who fought for you and died,
Scorn you that you broke a small Crime,
Left a great Crime pass in pride!
"England, France, the played-out countries,
Let them reek there in their stew,
Let their past rot out their present,
But the Future is with you!
"O America, O first-born
Of the age that yet shall be
Where all men shall be as one man,
Noble, faithful, fearless, free!—
"O America, O paramour
Of the foul slave-owner Pelf,
You who saved from slavery others,
Now from slavery save yourself!
"Save yourself, though, anguish-shaken,
You cry out and bow your head,
Crying 'Why am I forsaken?'
Crying 'It is finished!'
"Save yourself, no God will save you;
Not one angel can He give!
They and He are dead and vanished,
And 'tis you, 'tis you must live!
"Risen again, fire-tried, victorious,
From the grave of Crime down-hurled,
Peerless, pure, serene and glorious,
Wield the sceptre of the world!"