A Call To Kansas!Tune __" Nelly Bly."Yeomen strong, hither throng! Nature's honest men; We will make the wilderness Bud and bloom again. Bring the sickle, speed the plow, Turn the ready soil! Freedom is the noblest pay For the true man's toil. Ho, brothers! come, brothers! Hasten all with me; We'll sing upon the Kansas plains A song of liberty. Father, haste! O'er the waste Lies a pleasant land. There your fireside's altar-stones, Fixed in truth, shall stand. There your sons, brave and good, Shall to freemen groW, Clad in triple mail of right, Wrong to overthrow. Ho, brothers! come, brothers! Hasten all with me; We'll sing upon the Kansas plains A song of liberty! Brother, come! Here's a home In the waiting West; Bring the seeds of love and peace, You who sow them best. __Lucy Larcom. |
Written in competition for a prize of $50, offered in 1855 by the New Emigrant Aid Company for the best song in aid of the Kansas movement. This poem won the prize.
Kansas In Literature__Part I. Poetry
Introduction by William Herbert Carruth
(Topeka: Crane & Co. 1900)
Page 31
For more about this poem, see "The Free Sons of the North" versus "The Myrmidons of Border-Ruffianism'" in Kansas History, Autumn 2002
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