From “Twasinta’s Seminoles” (Canto I, XIX)

Oh! sing it in the light of freedom’s morn,
Tho’ tyrant wars have made the earth a grave;
The good, the great, and true, are, if so, born,
And so with slaves, chains do not make the slave!
If high-souled birth be what the mother gave,—
If manly birth, and manly to the core,—
Whate’er the test, the man will he behave!
Crush him to earth and crush him o’er and o’er,
A man he’ll rise at last and meet you as before.