‘Return!’—no never, while the withering hand
Of bigot power is on that helpless land;
While, for the faith my fathers held to God,
Ev’n in the fields where free those fathers trod,
I am proscrib’d, and—like the spot left bare
In Israel’s halls, to tell the proud and fair
Amidst their mirth, that Slavery had been there—
On all I love, home, parents, friends, I trace
The mournful mark of bondage and disgrace!
No!—let them stay, who in their country’s pangs