The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882]

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling

camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and

damps;

I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall

deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

The Eagle's Song

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He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call re

treat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

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,
While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe [1819-1910]

THE EAGLE'S SONG

THE lioness whelped, and the sturdy cub
Was seized by an eagle and carried up,
And homed for a while in an eagle's nest,
And slept for a while on an eagle's breast;
And the eagle taught it the eagle's song:
"To be staunch, and valiant, and free, and strong!"

The lion-whelp sprang from the eyrie nest,
From the lofty crag where the queen birds rest;
He fought the King on the spreading plain,
And drove him back o'er the foaming main.
He held the land as a thrifty chief,
And reared his cattle, and reaped his sheaf,
Nor sought the help of a foreign hand,
Yet welcomed all to his own free land!

Two were the sons that the country bore
To the Northern lakes and the Southern shore;
And Chivalry dwelt with the Southern son,
And Industry lived with the Northern one.
Tears for the time when they broke and fought!
Tears was the price of the union wrought!
And the land was red in a sea of blood,
Where brother for brother had swelled the flood!

And now that the two are one again,
Behold on their shield the word "Refrain!"

And the lion cubs twain sing the eagle's song:

"To be staunch, and valiant, and free, and strong!"
For the eagle's beak, and the lion's paw,
And the lion's fangs, and the eagle's claw,
And the eagle's swoop, and the lion's might,
And the lion's leap, and the eagle's sight,
Shall guard the flag with the word "Refrain!"
Now that the two are one again!

Richard Mansfield [1857-1907]

THE FLAG GOES BY

HATS off!

Along the street there comes

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!

The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,

Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.

Hats off!

The colors before us fly;

But more than the flag is passing by:

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,

Fought to make and to save the State:

Weary marches and sinking ships;

Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;

March of a strong land's swift increase;

Equal justice, right and law,

Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong

To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,-all

Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Unmanifest Destiny

Hats off!

Along the street there comes

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;

And loyal hearts are beating high:

Hats off!

The flag is passing by!

Henry Holcomb Bennett [1863

UNMANIFEST DESTINY

To what new fates, my country, far
And unforeseen of foe or friend,
Beneath what unexpected star,
Compelled to what unchosen end,

Across the sea that knows no beach
The Admiral of Nations guides
Thy blind obedient keels to reach
The harbor where thy future rides!

The guns that spoke at Lexington

Knew not that God was planning then

The trumpet word of Jefferson

To bugle forth the rights of men.

To them that wept and cursed Bull Run,
What was it but despair and shame?

Who saw behind the cloud the sun?

Who knew that God was in the flame?

Had not defeat upon defeat,
Disaster on disaster come,
The slave's emancipated feet

Had never marched behind the drum.

There is a Hand that bends our deeds
To mightier issues than we planned;
Each son that triumphs, each that bleeds,
My country, serves Its dark command.

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I do not know beneath what sky

Nor on what seas shall be thy fate;
I only know it shall be high,

I only know it shall be great.

Richard Hovey [1864-1900]

ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES

STREETS of the roaring town,

Hush for him, hush, be still!

He comes, who was stricken down

Doing the word of our will.

Hush! Let him have his state.

Give him his soldier's crown,

The grists of trade can wait

Their grinding at the mill,

But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been

blown.

Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast of stone.

Toll! Let the great bells toll
Till the clashing air is dim,
Did we wrong this parted soul?
We will make it up to him.

Toll! Let him never guess

What work we set him to.

Laurel, laurel, yes;

He did what we bade him do.

Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought

was good;

Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's own heart's-blood.

A flag for the soldier's bier

Who dies that his land may live;

O, banners, banners here,

That he doubt not nor misgive!