"The Freedman's Lament" (1866)
Song and Chorus 
Words and Music by M. B. Ladd
Arranged for the Piano Forte
by Mrs. Elizabeth Allen Parkhurst
  
New York: Horace Waters, 481 Broadway
Boston: Oliver Ditson
Philadelphia: Lee & Walker
Toledo, OH: H. N. Whitney [sp?]
Chicago: Root & Cady 
Stackpole Sc.
Plate No. 1274. 
[Source: from the Hackley Collection;
Digital ID: dpl-hac-00060.dc 
OCLC Record ID: 50490403]

1. They tell me that I now am free, 
And ne’er shall be a bondman more. 
But if I’m free why are my chains 
More galling than they were before. 
Or tell me true am I a man, 
And are my shackles rent in twain, 
But who is this stands frowning by, 
To bind my fetters fast again?

CHORUS [sung after each verse]
But if my fate mustcruel be, 
There still is freedom in the grave, 
Make me a man, or let me die, 
A hopeless broken hearted slave.

2. There came a cry from Sumter’s walls,
And loud it rolled o’er land and sea;
And father Abraham did say,
That every child of wrong was free;
We rallied ’neath the starry flag,
To show the world how we would die,
And on each Southern battleplain,
The sable sons of bondage lie.

3. Speak, sainted martyrs from on high,
And tell our masters once again,
That on the tree of Liberty,
The slave may hang his broken chain;
They tell me that I now am free;
And ne’er shall be a bondsman more.
But, if I’m free, why are my chains,
More galling than they were before?