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[96] “What though Issachar be strong!
Ye may load his back with wrong
Overmuch and over long:
Patience with her cup o'errun,
With her weary thread outspun,
Murmurs that her work is done.
Make our Union-bond a chain,
Weak as tow in Freedom's strain
Link by link shall snap in twain.
Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope
Bind the starry cluster up,
Shattered over heaven's blue cope!
Give us bright though broken rays,
Rather than eternal haze,
Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.
Take your land of sun and bloom;
Only leave to Freedom room
For her plough, and forge, and loom;
Take your slavery-blackened vales;
Leave us but our own free gales,
Blowing on our thousand sails.
Boldly, or with treacherous art,
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart;
Break the Union's mighty heart;
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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