"The Slave's Appeal"
(c1863; filed 11 Jan 1864; copyright library 5 Aug 1865;
28540; No. 1182; M1640.W]
[Quartette]
Words by Barbara Brande.
Music by Joseph Philbrick Webster, 1819-1875.

Chicago: H. M. HIGGINS, 117th Randolph St.
[Source: 200002241@LoC/IHAS-CWM]

1. 
By our lives of degradation; 
By our years of desolation; 
List to our appeal ye nations, 
Help us brothers— help, we pray. 
By your groans, and plaints and sighing; 
By your dead, and by your dying, 
In their pain and torture lying; 
Help us brothers— help, we pray.

2. 
By the lash our bodies flaying; 
By the bloodhounds’ ruthless baying; 
By the children round us playing; 
O ye nations— help, we  pray. 
On our souls sin’s lines are graven, 
By our tyrant’s vice enslaven, 
Can our spirits hope for Heaven— 
Given to crime a helpless pray?

3. 
Save our children from this sorrow, 
Looking through the long tomorrow. 
Nought but anguish can we borbow,— 
By our shuff’rings— help, we pray. 
Dear to us, oh! freeborn mothers, 
Are our children, sires and brothers; 
Dear to us, as their’s to others, 
By your loved ones— help, we pray.

4. 
O’er the land war’s serpents trailing, 
Fill your hearts with woe and wailing, 
Are we at the last found failing? 
By war’s terrors— help, we pray. 
Not in vain, ’mid Southern boulders, 
Lie the bones of Freedom’s soldiers; 
Not in vain their bodies molder— 
’Tis the midnight brings our day.

5. 
Dear to us, oh! freeborn mothers, 
Are our children, sires and brothers; 
Dear to us as theirs to others, 
By your loved ones— help, we pray. 
By our years of degradation, 
By our fears and desolation; 
Save us from this condemnation, 
Freemen— brothers— save, we pray!