Americans! rouse at the rumors of war, Which now are distracting the hearts of the nation, A flame blowing up, to extinguish your power And leave you, a prey, to another invasion;
A second invasion, as bad as the old, When, northward or southward, wherever they stroll'd With heart and with hand, a murdering band Of vagrants, came over to ravage your land:
For liberty's guard, you are ever array'd And know how to fight, in the sun or the shade. Remember the cause that induced you to rise When oppression advanced, with her king-making host,
Twas the cause of our nation that bade you despise And drive to destruction all England's proud host, Who, with musket and sword, under men they adored, Rush'd into each village and rifled each shade
To murder the planter, and ravish the maid. What though you arose, and resolved to be free, With spirit to humble all Europe combining, You had soon bit the dust or been drown'd in the sea
By the slaves of a king, and a court all designing, Had not liberty swore she would cover your shore, Her colors display'd, and with vengeance repaid The myriads that came from a blood-thirsty isle
Our groves, and our streams, and our beds to defile. Our churches defaced, by a merciless foe, Or made the poor captive's distress'd habitation: The prison-ship, fraught with its cargo of wo,
Where thousands were starved, without shame or compassion; All these, and yet more, were the evils we bore From a motherly dame, Great Britain her name, From a nation, that once we accounted our friends,
Who would shackle the country, that freedom defends. All true-born americans! join, as of old; For freedom's defence, be your firm resolution; Whoever invades you by force, or with gold,
Alike is a foe to a free constitution: Unite to pull down that imposture, a crown; Oppose it at least, tis a mark of the beast: All tyranny's engines again are at work
To make you as poor and as base as the turk. Abandon'd to all the intrigues of a knave, Abounding with sharpers of every description, They would plunder our towns, and prohibit the wave;
Their treaties of commerce are all a deception: Not a ship do we send but they rob without end; With their law of blockade they have ruin'd our trade; The shops of mechanics at midnight they burn
That home manufactures may cease to be worn. Look round the wide world; and observe with a sigh, Wherever a monarch presides o'er a nation, Sweet nature appears with a tear in her eye,
And the mantle of sorrow enshrouds the creation. The ocean is chain'd, all freedom restrain'd, The soil is resign'd to the pests of mankind, To royals and nobles, the guard of the throne,
And the slaves they have bribed, to make freedom their own. All hail to the nation, immortal and great, Who, rising on bold philosophical pinion, Reforms, and enlightens, and strengthens the state,
Not places her weal in excess of dominion. What reason can do she intends to pursue; And true to the plan, on which she began, Will the volume unfold she to freedom assign'd,
Till tyrants are chased from the sight of mankind. Since the day we declared, they were masters no more, The day we arose from the colony station, Has England attack'd us, by sea and by shore,
In war by the sword, as in peace by vexation; Impressment they claim'd, till our seamen, ashamed, Grew sick of our flag, that against the old hag Of Britain, no longer their freedom protected
But left them, like slaves, to be lash'd and corrected. Old Rome, that in darkness so long had been lost, Since on her republic bright freedom was shining: The warmth of her spirit congeal'd in a frost,
Under tyrants and popes, many centuries, pining: At the close of the page, who can bridle his rage To see her return to the fetters she broke, When tyranny sicken'd, and liberty spoke:
What an image of clay have they thrown in her way! The king and the priest on her carcass will feast; When these are allied, the world they divide; The nations they plunder, the nations they kill,
And bend all the force of the mind to their will: Not the spirit to rise, or the strength to command, But friars and monks — and the scum of the land.— No more of your Nero's or Caesars complain,
Leave Brutus and Cato, and take them again. But reason, that sun, whose unquenchable ray Progressive, has dawn'd on the night of the mind, From the source of all good, may hereafter display,
And man a more dignified character find: As far as example and vigor can go, As long as forbearance and patience will do, The western republic will carry it through —:
May order and peace through the nations increase, And murder, and plunder, and tyranny cease: May justice and honor through empires prevail And all the bad passions weigh light in the scale,
Till man is the being that nature at first Placed here, to be happy, and not to be cursed. Approaching, at hand, in the progress of time, An era will come, to begin its career,
When freedom reviving, and man in his prime, His rights will assert, and maintain without fear Of that cunning, bold race, who our species disgrace; On the blood of a nation who make calculation
To rise into splendor and fill a high station; Nay, climb to the throne on a villanous plan To plunder his substance, and trample on man.
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