Base Oppressors, break your slumbers;
Listen to a Nation’s cry;
Hark! united, countless numbers
Swell the peal of agony!
Lo! from Britain’s sons and daughters,
In the depths of misery—
Like the sound of many waters—
Comes the cry “we will be free!”

Tyrants quail! the dawn is breaking—
Dawn of Freedom’s glorious day;
Despots on their thrones are quaking;
Iron bands are giving way;
Kingcraft, priestcraft, black oppression,
Cannot bear our scrutiny;—
We have learnt this startling lesson—
“If we will we may be free!”

By our own, our children’s charter;
By the blood that fires our veins;
By each truth-attesting martyr—
By their tears, and groans, and pains;
By our rights, by Nature given;
By the voice of Liberty;—
We proclaim before high heaven,
That we must, we will be free!

Winds and waves the tidings carry;
Spirits, in your stormy car,
Wing’d with lightnings, do not tarry;—
Bear the news to lands afar!
Tell them—sound the thrilling story,
Louder than the thunder’s glee—
That a people, ripe for glory,
Are determined to be free!