The Liberator

When, scornful of a nation's rest,

The angry horns of Discord blew

There came a giant from the West,

And found a giant's work to do.

He saw, in sorrow—and in wrath—

A mighty empire in its strait,

Torn like a planet in its path

To warring hemisphere of hate.

Between the thunder-clouds he stood;

He harked to Ruin's battle-drum,

And cried in patriot hardihood,

"Why do I wait? My hour has come!

"Was it my fate, my lot, my woe

To be the Ruler of the land,

Nor own my oath that long ago

I swore upon this heart and hand?

"That vow, like barb from bowman's string,

Shall pierce sedition's secret plea:

God grant the bloodless blow shall sting

Till brother's quarrels cease to be!

"Should once the sudden wound provoke

New strife in anger's zone

The clash may be the penal stroke

That makes a new Republic one."

He wrote his Message—clear as light,

And bolder than a king's command—

And when war's whirlwinds spent their might

There was no bondman in the land.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Photograph by Alexander Gardner, Washington, D. C., January 24, 1863