In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed, Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed: T was red with the blood of freemen and white with the fear of the foe; And the stars that fight in their courses gainst tyrants its symbols know.
You might have deemed our long gun-deck Two hundred feet of hell.1
The River Fight.
Note 1. Remark attributed to General William Tecumseh Sherman (18201891): War is hell. Henry van Dyke: On the St. Gaudens Statue of Sherman: This is the soldier brave enough to tell The glory-dazzled world that war is hell. [back]