OLD LIBERIA IS NOT THE PLACE
FOR ME.

Come all ye Colonizationists,
     My muse is odd to-day--
Come, listen while she's singing
     Her soft and gentle lay.
Before she's done you'll understand,
     Whosever you may be,
        That Old Liberia
     Is not the place for me.

Although I'm trodden underfoot
     Here in America--
And th' right to life, and liberty,
     From me you take away.
Until my brethren in the South
     From chains are all set free--
        The Old Liberia
     Is not the place for me.

Although (as Moses Walker says)*
     There children never cry:
And he who can well act the hog,
     For food will never die;
For there the yams and cocoa-nuts
     And oranges are free;
        Yet old Liberia
     Is not the place for me.

You say it is a goodly land,
     Where milk and honey flow;
And every Jack will be a man
     Who there may choose to go.
You say that God appointed there
     The black man's destiny;
        Yet old Liberia
     Is not the place for me.

The sweet potatoes there may grow
     And rice in great supplies;
And purest waters ever flow,
     Which dazzle quite your eyes.
Tho' there they have the sugar-cane;
     Also the coffee tree,
        Yet old Liberia
     Is not the place for me.

Three million slaves are in the South!
     And suffering there today:
You've gag'd them; yea, you've stop'd
          their mouth,
     They dare not even pray!
We who art and enterprise,
     Are trudging on our way,
You'd have us all to colonize,
     In old Liberia.

Give joy or grief--give ease or pain,
     Take life or friends away;
I deem this as my native land,
     And here I'm bound to stay.
I have a mind to be a man
     Among white men and free;
        And OLD LIBERIA!
     Is not the place for me!!

My muse has chanted now too long,
     And spent her breath in vain--
In singing of that Negro Den,
     Across the raging main
Our blood is now so far dispers'd
     Among the Anglo-race,
To rid this country of the curse
     Would need a larger space.

        And old Liberia
     Is rather far away;
     I'd rather find a peaceful home
        n Old America!

*This Moses Walker is a colored man who has recently returned from Liberia, where he has been on a spring tour, and has been since his return,tickling the ears of the Colonizationists in many parts of our State, with "joyous" report of the glorious prospect of Liberia becoming a great nation. He declares that all a man need do to live in Liberia, is to lay down and roll, and eat. He also states that "the native children never! because their parents stuff them with food, just as some of our farmer-women stuff turkeys and geese, to fatten them for Christmas!"