True Liberty, by Matthew Bridges
O! Liberty, how fair art thou,
Offspring of heaven, religion's child;
The olive waves around thy brow,
And roses grace thine aspect mild:
Where thou art absent, ills arrive
Hovering on desolation's wing;
Where thou art present, joys revive,
And hill and valley laugh and sing.
Why weeps the captive, long and late,
When looking through his iron grate
On heaven, or earth, or sea?
It is because the vault above,
The fields, the waves, in lines of love,
All say he should be free.
The thought at first in hell began,
That man should bind his brother-man.
Rise, England, rise -- and cast aside
That stain which well may check thy pride,
And bow thee in the dust;
Haste to those lovely western isles,
Where thou hast blasted nature's smiles,
And there at last be just!
Ah ! who of us can ever know
The Negroes' mournful cup of woe?
Beneath their hard oppression's load,
For them no milk of kindness flowed.
We pressed the sweetness from the cane,
And paid them bitterly in pain; --
Wipe -- wipe those untold tears away,
And turn their darkness into day!
Yes -- let the shameful fetters fall
From off the hands and feet of all;
And may their God and ours impart
A nobler freedom of the heart:
Freedom from sin's accursed coil,
That bond of tyranny and toil!
Then shall a brighter morn arise
Than yet hath graced their glorious skies: --
The tree of life its shade shall shed
O'er many a sable mourner's head,
With balmy leaves for healing given,
And fruit for food -- the bread of heaven!
Partakers of that blissful seed,
The negroes shall be free indeed!
Matthew Bridges.