Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burden
lies;
God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across
the skies.
Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised
and trembling scale?
Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail?
Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry
splendor waves,
Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread
of slaves?

The day is breaking in the East of which the
prophets told,
And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian
Age of Gold;
Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to
clerkly pen,
Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs
stand up as men;

The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations
born,
And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul's
Golden Horn!

Is this, O countrymen of mine! a day for us to sow
The soil of new-gained empire with slavery's seeds
of woe?
To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World's