Chapter I

Ay, to the doom--the scaffold and the chain,--
To all your cruel tortures, bear them on,
Ye foul and coward Hangmen;--but in vain!--
Ye cannot touch the glory they have won--
And win--thus yielding up the martyr's breath
For freedom!--Theirs is a triumphant death!--
A sacred pledge from Nature, that her womb
Still keeps some sacred fires;--that yet shall burst,
Even from the reeking ravage of their doom,
As glorious--ay, more glorious--than the first!
Exult, shout, triumph! Wretches, do your worst!
'Tis for a season only! There shall come
An hour when ye shall feel yourselves accurst;
When the dread vengeance of a century
Shall reap its harvest in a single day;
And ye shall howl in horror;--and, to die,
Shall be escape and refuge! Ye may slay;
But to be cruel and brutal, does not make
Ye conquerors; and the vulture yet shall prey
On living hearts; and vengeance fiercely slake
The unappeasable appetite ye wake,
In the hot blood of victims, that have been,
Most eager, binding freemen to the stake,--
Most greedy, in the orgies of this sin!

II.

Ye slaughter,--do ye triumph? Ask your chains, Ye Sodom-hearted butchers!--turn your eyes, Where reeks yon bloody scaffold; and the pains, Ungroaned, of a true martyr, ere he dies, Attest the damned folly of your crime, Now at its carnival! His spirit flies, Unscathed by all your fires, through every clime, Into the world's wide bosom. Thousands rise, Prompt at its call, and principled to strike The tyrants and the tyrannies alike!-- Voices, that doom ye, speak in all your deeds, And cry to heaven, arm earth, and kindle hell! A host of freemen, where one martyr bleeds, Spring from his place of doom, and make his knell The toscin, to arouse a myriad race, T'avenge Humanity's wrong, and wipe off man's disgrace!