XIII.
Yet while by life’s endearments crowned,
To mark this day we gather round,
And to our nation’s founders raise
The voice of gratitude and praise,
Shall not one line lament that lion race,
For us struck out from sweet creation’s face?
Alas! alas! for them—those fated bands,
Whose monarch tread was on these broad, green lands;
Our Fathers called them savage—them, whose bread,
In the dark hour, those famished Fathers fed:
We call them savage, we,
Who hail the struggling free,
We, who would save
The branded slave,
And give him liberty he never knew:
We, who but now have caught the tale,
That turns each listening tyrant pale,
And blessed the winds and waves that bore
The tidings to our kindred shore;
The triumph-tidings pealing from that land,
Where up in arms insulted legions stand;
There, gathering round his bold compeers,
Where He, our own, our welcomed One,
Riper in glory than in years,
Down from his forfeit throne,
A craven monarch hurled,
And spurned him forth, a proverb to the world!