Words That Touch the Inner Heart
WORDS, words! O give me these,
Words befitting what I feel,
That I may on every breeze
Waft to those whose riven steel
Fetters souls and shackles hands
Born to be as free as air,
Yet crushed and cramped by Slavery’s bands,—
Words that have an influence there.
Words, words! give me to write
Such as touch the inner heart;
Not mere flitting forms of light,
That please the ear and then depart;
But burning words, that reach the soul,
That bring the shreds of error out,
That with resistless power do roll,
And put the hosts of Wrong to rout.
Let others tune their lyres, and sing
Illusive dreams of fancied joy;
But, my own harp,—its every string
Shall find in Truth enough employ.
It shall not breathe of Freedom here,
While millions clank the galling chain;
Or e’en one slave doth bow in fear,
Within our country’s broad domain.
Go where the slave-gang trembling stands,
Herded with every stable stock,—
Woman with fetters on her hands,
And infants on the auction-block!
See, as she bends, how flow her tears!
Hark! hear her broken, trembling sighs;
Then hear the oaths, the threats, the jeers,
Of men who lash her as she cries!
O, men! who have the power to weave
In poesy’s web deep, searching thought,
Be truth thy aim; henceforward leave
The lyre too much with fancy fraught!
Come up, and let the words you write
Be those which every chain would break,
And every sentence you indite
Be pledged to Truth for Freedom’s sake.