Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

The Old Revolutionist

HE sleeps with the brave, who have fled

From their earthly abiding before him;

For his country he fought and he bled,

And the soil of his country is o’er him—

The soil which so firmly he press’d

In the hour when the enemy found him,

With buckler and shield at his breast,

And the valiant in armour around him.

He sleeps, and the patriot’s name

Shall be read in the annals of glory;

For ages will hallow his fame,

And the minstrel proclaim it in story.

His children’s descendants shall tell

Of his battles and dangers, and proudly

The pæan of honour shall swell,

And the shout of his triumph ring loudly.

In the moment of peril he stood

With his smoke-enwreathed pennon high waving,

Unheeding the toil, and the flood

Of dark gore which his footsteps was laving.

Unappeased, unappall’d, unoppress’d

In the ranks of the free and the glorious

He trod, till he hail’d with the rest

The starr’d banner of Freedom victorious.

He stood as his children shall stand

In the moment when dangers surround them,

When tumult awakes in the land,

And the league of the stranger hath found them—

Unpurchased: unbound in the toils

Of aggressors, and foes to aggression:

’Gainst the serfs of European soils,

They will cut out their way from oppression.

He sleeps—he has gone to the home

Where the war-blast can never assail him;

Where peril and blight cannot come,

Or the warrior’s bearing avail him.

He sleeps, and perennial bloom

Shall be his of whom fate hath bereft us:

We honour the warrior’s plume,

And we weep that the soldier hath left us.

But he sleeps with the brave, who have fled

From their earthly abiding, before him:

For his country he fought and he bled,

And the soil of his country is o’er him—

The soil which he dauntlessly press’d

In the hour when the enemy found him,

With buckler and shield at his breast,

And the valiant in armour around him.