Read "Deliverance" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Rise up! rise up! Oh Israel, / Let a spotless lamb be slain; / The angel of death will o'er you bend / And rend your galling chain.
Sprinkle its blood upon the posts / And lintels of your door; / When the angel sees the crimson spots / Unharmed he will pass you o'er.
Gather your flocks and herds to-night, / Your children by our side:
A leader from Arabia comes / To be your friend and guide.
With girded loins and sandled feet / Await the hour of dread, / When Mizraim shall wildly mourn / Her first-born and her dead.
The sons of Abraham no more / Shall crouch 'neath Pharoah's hand, / Trembling with agony and dread, / He'll thrust you from the land.
And ye shall hold in unborn years / A feast to mark this day, / When joyfully the fathers rose / And cast their chains away.
When crimson tints of morning flush / The golden gates of day, / Or gorgeous hue of even melt / In sombre shades away, / Then ye shall to your children teach / The meaning of this feast, / How from the proud oppressor's hand / Their fathers were released, / And ye shall hold through distant years / This feast with glad accord, / And children's children yet shall learn / To love and trust the Lord.
Ages have passed since Israel trod / In triumph through the sea, / And yet they hold in memory's urn / Their first great jubilee.
When Moses led the ransomed hosts, / And Miriam's song arose, / While ruin closed around the path / Of their pursuing foes.
Shall Israel thro' long varied years / These memories cherish yet, / And we who lately stood redeemed / Our broken chains forget?
Should we forget the wondrous change / That to our people came, / When justice rose and sternly plead / Our cause with sword and flame?
And led us through the storms of war / To freedom's fairer shore, / When slavery sank beneath a flood / Whose waves were human gore.
Oh, youth and maidens of the land, / Rise up with one accord, / And in the name of Christ go forth / To battle for the Lord.
Go forth, but not in crimson fields.
With fratricidal strife, / But in the name of Christ go forth / For freedom, love and life.
Go forth to follow in his steps, / Who came not to destroy, / Till wastes shall blossom as the rose, / And deserts sing for joy.