Allow'd me to put on the armor bright,

By him supplied to fit me for the fight,

The ceaseless contest for true liberty;—

For truth alone can set the sinner free,

And bring the blind from darkness into light.

Alas, how chang'd the scene? For then were here

Full many a form of loveliness now fled,—

Father and Mother, Brothers, Sisters dear,

And many friends,—all sleeping with the dead.

What were I now, did not God's truth divine