"New-England" (1822)

BY JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

HAIL to the land whereon we tread, Our fondest boast; The sepulchre of mighty dead, The truest hearts that ever bled, Who sleep on glory’s brightest bed, A fearless host: No slave is here — our unchain’d feet Walk freely, as the waves that beat Our coast.

Our fathers cross’d the ocean’s wave To seek this shore; They left behind the coward slave To welter in his living grave;

With hearts unbent, high, steady, brave, They sternly bore Such toils, as meaner souls had quell’d; But souls like these, such toils impell’d To soar.

Hail to the morn, when first they stood On Bunker’s height; And fearless stemm’d the invading flood, And wrote our dearest rights in blood, And mow’d in ranks the hireling brood, In desperate fight: O! ’twas a proud, exulting day, For ev’n our fallen fortunes lay In light.

There is no other land like thee, No dearer shore; Thou art the shelter of the free; The home, the port of liberty Thou hast been, and shalt ever be, Till time is o’er. Ere I forget to think upon My land, shall mother curse the son She bore.

Thou art the firm, unshaken rock, On which we rest; And rising from thy hardy stock, Thy sons the tyrant’s frown shall mock, And slavery’s galling chains unlock, And free the oppress’d: All, who the wreath of freedom twine, Beneath the shadow of their vine Are blest.

We love thy rude and rocky shore, And here we stand – Let foreign navies hasten o’er, And on our heads their fury pour,

And peal their cannon’s loudest roar, And storm our land: They still shall find, our lives are giv’n To die for home; — and leant on heav’n Our hand.

James G. Percival, (Charleston, 1822), No. I, 26–28.