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The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings cover

The Anti-slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-slavery Meetings

Chapter 16: YE SPIRITS OF THE FREE!
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About This Book

A compilation of abolitionist songs and lyric pamphlets intended for anti-slavery gatherings, offering moral appeals, narratives of suffering, and calls to collective action. Poems dramatize the anguish of enslaved mothers, the fate of separated families, and the experiences of fugitives guided by the North Star, while urging political and religious solidarity against slavery. Several pieces adapt their words to familiar popular airs to facilitate communal singing, and the collection blends emotional testimony, exhortation, and patriotic imagery to mobilize audiences for emancipation.

YE SPIRITS OF THE FREE!

Air—My faith looks up to thee.
Ye spirits of the free,
Can ye forever see
Your brother man
A yoked and scourged slave,
Chains dragging to his grave,
And raise no hand to save?
Say if you can.
In pride and pomp to roll,
Shall tyrants from the soul
God’s image tear,
And call the wreck their own,—
While, from the eternal throne,
They shut the stifled groan
And bitter prayer?
Shall he a slave be bound,
Whom God hath doubly crowned
Creation’s lord?
Shall men of Christian name,
Without a blush of shame,
Profess their tyrant claim
From God’s own word?
No! at the battle cry,
A host prepared to die,
Shall arm for fight—
But not with martial steel,
Grasped with a murderous zeal;
No arms their foes shall feel,
But love and light.
Firm on Jehovah’s laws,
Strong in their righteous cause,
Their march to save.
And vain the tyrant’s mail,
Against their battle-hail,
Till cease the woe and wail
Of tortured slave.