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Dying, dying wearily, with a torture sure and slow—

Dying, as a dog would die, by the wayside as we go.

One by one they're falling round us, their pale faces to the sky;

We've no strength left to dig them graves—there let them lie.

The wild bird, if he's stricken, is mourned by the others,

But we—we die in Christian land—we die amid our brothers,

In the land which God has given, like a wild beast in his cave,

Without a tear, a prayer, a shroud, a coffin, or a grave.

Ha! but think ye the contortions on each livid face ye see,

Will not be read on judgment-day by eyes of Deity?

We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,

But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.

Now is your hour of pleasure—bask ye in the world's caress;

But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,

From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin'd masses,

For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.

A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we'll stand,