Freedom by James Russell Lowell. Upton Sinclair, ed. 1915. The Cry for Justice

Nonfiction > Upton Sinclair, ed. > The Cry for Justice

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

Freedom

By James Russell Lowell

(American scholar and poet, 1819–1891, author of many impassioned poems of human freedom. An ardent anti-slavery advocate, it was said during the Civil War that his poetry was worth an army corps to the Union)


MEN! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain	5
When it works a brother’s pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?

Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,	10
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! True Freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be	15
Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing and abuse,	20
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think:
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.

Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry