Ode in  General   

GOD save the Rights of Man!
Give us a heart to scan
Blessings so dear:
Let them be spread around
Wherever man is found,
And with the welcome sound
Ravish his ear.

Let us with France agree,
And bid the world be free,
While tyrants fall!
Let the rude savage host
Of their vast numbers boast--
Freedom's almight trust
Laughs at them all!

Though hosts of slaves conspire
To quench fair Gallia's fire,
Still shall they fail:
Though traitors round her rise,
Leagu'd with her enemies,
To war each patriot flies,
And will prevail.

No more is valor's flame
Devoted to a name,
Taught to adore--
Soldiers of Liberty
Disdain to bow the knee,
But ateach Equality
To every shore.

The world at last will join
To aid thy grand design,
Dear Liberty!
To Russia's frozen lands
The generous flame expands:
On Afric's burning sands
Shall man be free!

In this our western world
Be Freedom's flag unfurl'd
Through all its shores!
May no destructive blast
Our heaven of joy o'ercast,
May Freedom's fabric last
While time endures.

If e'er her cause require!--
Should tyrants e'er aspire
To aim their stroke,
May no proud despot daunt--
Should he his standard plant,
Freedom will never want
Her hearts of oak!

By Philip Freneau

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Other poems by Philip Freneau:

• Ode
• On a Honey Bee
• On Retirement
• On The Death Of Dr. Benjamin Franklin
• On the Ruins of a Country Inn
• On the Universality and Other Attributes of the Go
• Song of Thyrsis
• The Indian Burying Ground
• The Republican Genius of Europe
• The Vernal Age
• The Wild Honey-Suckle
• To A New England Poet