A Free Song

Long, too long America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from cries of anguish,
 ... 

Look down, fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;
On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss'd wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.

O, a new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice,
By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.

We hear and see not strips of cloth alone;
We hear again the tramp of armies,
We hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing,
We hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men,
We hear liberty.