| |
| HERE they come!—’tis the Twelfth, you know,— | |
| The colonel is just at hand; | |
| The ranks close up, to the measured flow | |
| Of music cheery and grand. | |
| Glitter on glitter, row by row, | 5 |
| The steady bayonets, on they go | |
| For God and the Right to stand; | |
| Another thousand to front the foe! | |
| And to die—if it must be even so— | |
| For the dear old fatherland! | 10 |
| |
| O trusty and true! O gay warm heart! | |
| O manly and earnest brow! | |
| Here, in the hurrying street, we part— | |
| To meet—ah! when and how? | |
| O ready and staunch! who, at war’s alarm, | 15 |
| On lonely hill-side and mountain-farm | |
| Have left the axe and the plough! | |
| That every tear were a holy charm, | |
| To guard, with honour, some head from harm, | |
| And to quit some generous vow! | 20 |
| For, of valiant heart and of sturdy arm | |
| Was never more need than now. | |
| |
| Ay! ’tis at hand!—foul lips, be dumb! | |
| Our Armageddon is yet to come! | |
| But cheery bugle and angry drum, | 25 |
| With volleyed rattle and roar, | |
| And cannon thunder-throb, shall be drowned | |
| That day in a grander, stormier sound; | |
| The Land, from mountain to shore, | |
| Hurling shackle and scourge and stake | 30 |
| Back to their Lender of pit and lake; | |
| (’Twas Tophet leased them of yore),— | |
| O mighty heart! thou wast long to wake.— | |
| ’Tis thine, to-morrow, to win or break | |
| In a deadlier close once more,— | 35 |
| If but for the dear and glorious sake | |
| Of those who have gone before. | |
| |
| O Fair and Faithful! that, sun by sun, | |
| Slept on the field, or lost or won,— | |
| Children dear of the Holy One! | 40 |
| Rest in your wintry sod. | |
| Rest, your noble devoir is done,— | |
| Done—and forever! Ours, to-day, | |
| The dreary drift and the frozen clay | |
| By trampling armies trod; | 45 |
| The smoky shroud of the War-Simoom, | |
| The maddened crime at bay with her Doom, | |
| And fighting it, clod by clod. | |
| O Calm and Glory!—beyond the gloom, | |
| Above the bayonets bend and bloom | 50 |
| The lilies and palms of God. | |
| |
