I.
O Marvell's harp! I dare to wake
Thy silent strings for Freedom's sake,
To sing how vain thy boast
Of Cromwell's conquering host!

II.
O Marvell's self! arise instead,
To warn the living by the dead,
How Freedom may be lost,
Though won at bloody cost!

III.
A nation, weak amid her might,
Sent forth her lowliest to the fight,
Until by men enslaved
The free themselves were saved.

IV.
But, O victorious state! -- unjust,
Perfidious, false to Freedom's trust! --
Thy feet are trampling now
The men who crowned thy brow!

V
Before the Judge of all the earth,
Men hold an equal rank of birth,
An equal law of breath,
An equal dust of death.

VI.
O Freedom! open thou a grave,
Where every king, where every slave,
Shall cast in crown and chain,
Till only men remain!

VII.
Meanwhile, I lay thee on the ground,
O harp! nor smite thee to a sound,
For now a poet's stroke
Is vain to break a yoke.

VIII.
But when the tardy earth hath rolled
Her kingdoms to the age of gold,
A poet by his song
Shall crumble down a wrong!

- Theodore Tilton

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