Colonel David Humphreys (1752–1818)

Tune—“The Restoration March”

THOUGH love’s soft transports may

A while allure the soul,

When Freedom calls to war,

Those powers she will control;

When British bands in hostile arms,

Indignantly we view,

What patriot’s breast but throbs, to bid

His love, and ease, adieu;

In Freedom’s all-inspiring cause,

To fly alert to arms,

And change his downy bed

For Mars’s dread alarms.

Then let not love’s sweet bane

Your gallant souls enthral,

But in your country’s cause,

Resolve to stand or fall;

And when by our united force

We’ve drove the tyrants home,

With laurels, such as graced the brows

Of sons of ancient Rome,

We’ll each return to his kind lass,

Whose beauty soon shall prove

That for the toils of war

The best reward is love.