March on! March on!
TUNE:—“The Pirate’s Glee.”
March on! march on, ye friends of freedom for all,
For truth and right contend;
Be ever ready at humanity’s call,
Till tyrant’s power shall end.
The proud slave-holders rule the nation,
The people’s groans are loud and long;
Arouse, ye men, in every station,
And join to crush the power of wrong.—March on, etc.
Fight on! fight on, ye brave till victory’s won,
And justice shall prevail;
Till all shall feel the rays of liberty’s sun,
Streaming o’er hill and dale.
The tyrants know their guilt and tremble,
The glowing light of truth they fear;
Then let them all their hosts assemble,
And Slavery’s dreadful sentence hear.
Fight on! fight on, &c.
Roll on! roll on, ye brave, the liberty car,
Our country’s name to save;
Soon shall our land be known to nations afar,
As the home of the free and brave.
The voice of freemen loud hath spoken,
A brighter day we soon shall see;
When Slavery’s chains shall all be broken,
And all the captive millions free.
Roll on, roll on, &c.
Footnotes
1 An African prince having arrived in England, and having been asked what he had given for his watch, answered, “What I will never give again—I gave a fine boy for it.”
2 This song is said to be sung by Slaves, as they are chained in gangs, when parting from friends for the far off South—children taken from parents, husbands from wives, and brothers from sisters.
3 Clay’s body servant.
4 Scene in the nether world—purporting to be a conversation between the departed ghost of a Southern slaveholding clergyman, and the devil!
5 As sung by G.W.C. at the erection of the monument to the memory of Myron Holley, Mount Hope, Rochester. It may be sung as a Dirge.