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| UP with thy banners! Out with all thy strength | |
| Rock-hearted country of the brave and wise! | |
| Huge fortress of the North! unfurl at length | |
| All thy sharp streamers o’er the flashing skies | |
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| Thou that of old, if but a shadow fell— | 5 |
| The shadow only of a coming foe, | |
| Athwart thy bulwarks—heard the stormy swell | |
| Of countless armies gathering below | |
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| Thy deep foundations; all thy ancient woods | |
| Upwaking with a heavy solemn roar, | 10 |
| Thy rocks, thy rivers and thy solitudes, | |
| And the great sea that broke upon thy shore, | |
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| Out-thundering to the nations! with the noise | |
| Of strange artillery in the earth and sky, | |
| Chariots and horsemen, such as God employs, | 15 |
| When he would startle to new energy | |
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| The o’ertired Universe. Up with thee now! | |
| Child of the North—New England—Up and heave | |
| Thy sumptuous drapery to the wind! Thy brow | |
| Begirt with adamant, lay bare; and leave | 20 |
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| The lurid panoply of death; and go | |
| Forth like the mightiest and the best of them | |
| Who, if they move to grapple with a foe, | |
| Put on a snowy robe—a diadem | |
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| Of triple stars. Up with thee, in thy grave | 25 |
| And awful beauty! Let the nations hear | |
| The language of endurance from the brave; | |
| The song of peace from such as know not fear. | |
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| Shall War prevail for ever? Must we be | |
| For ever and for ever bound to wage, | 30 |
| Like the devouring creatures of the sea, | |
| Unceasing battle for our heritage? | |
| |
| Are we to sleep in armor? To lie down | |
| With lighted thunderbolts, year after year, | |
| Lest they who saw their monarch vail his crown | 35 |
| At our approach of old, may venture near? | |
| |
| What though a fourth of thy brave empire now | |
| Is put upon the casting of a die? | |
| The land our fathers bled for—that which Thou | |
| Regardest as a portion of the sky— | 40 |
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| And justly too. What though thy outstretch’d hands | |
| Are vast and powerful? Thy rocky earth, | |
| Rough though it be, more precious than the lands | |
| That burn with gold and gems? Of greater worth | |
| |
| To thy stout people, Country of the free! | 45 |
| Than if thy waters rang o’er beds of pearls, | |
| Flashing and sounding with the great high sea,— | |
| Or when their wrath was up—in drifts and whirls | |
| |
| Threw diamonds—rubies—lumps of light ashore; | |
| The wealth of India, or the glorious coil | 50 |
| Of shipwreck’d empires freighted with the store | |
| Of gone-by ages—founder’d with their spoil. | |
| |
| From the four quarters of our strength, are we | |
| To keep for ever thundering, night and day? | |
| Will nothing do but warfare? Must we be | 55 |
| Arm’d to the teeth for ever? arm’d to slay? | |
| |
| Are the proud creatures of our soil—our youth, | |
| Our fruitage and our hope—are they to go | |
| Not reasoning as they ought with words of truth, | |
| Along the way of life, but arm’d as though | 60 |
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| The brave and beauteous earth whereon they tread, | |
| Were fashion’d by the Builder of the Skies, | |
| Not for his living Image, but the dead— | |
| A place for slaughter and for sacrifice; | |
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| The Golgotha of nations. Must they be | 65 |
| Bred up to butchery from their earliest breath? | |
| Made to believe that they are serving thee, | |
| Our Father! when they sweep a storm of death, | |
| |
| O’er portions of thy goodliest heritage, | |
| Tearing a path to empire—laying bare | 70 |
| The Vineyards of the world, age after age, | |
| Or clamoring with ten thousand trumpets where | |
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| The shadowy monsters of the Great Deep dwell, | |
| With star-drift—fire—and shapes magnificent, | |
| Creatures that watch thy roaring citadel— | 75 |
| The broad black sea—the sun-dropp’d firmament. | |
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| Father of men! Jehovah! What are they, | |
| The rulers of the earth, that they should dare, | |
| To set aside thy law—to bid man slay | |
| Where thou, their God, hast told him to forbear? | 80 |
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| New England rouse thee from thy heavy sleep! | |
| Storehouse of nations—Lighted of the sky— | |
| Great northern hive—Long cherish’d of the deep— | |
| Mother of States! To thee we turn our eye! | |
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| Up with thy heart in prayer, and cry aloud | 85 |
| Peace to the Nations; to our Borders peace! | |
| Why roll your banners like a thunder-cloud, | |
| O’er sky and earth for ever? Let war cease! | |
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| Let our brave Country lift her arms and swear | |
| By Him that dwelleth in eternity, | 90 |
| That henceforth and for ever she will wear | |
| About her warrior brow, the flowering olive-tree! | |
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