SONG OF THE SPIRITS.
Our Mother, oh, our Country dear!
We heard thy cry for aid,
And, rending every other tie,
Thy voice we have obeyed!
We left our plowshares in the field,
Our horses at the fence;
And, seizing weapons as we could,
We rushed to thy defense;
Unflinching or in limb or rank,
And fighting hand to hand,
We’ve found our death-blow on the spot
On which we took our stand.
Here gently rest we on the sod,
Fixed on high Heaven our glance;
Pierced, each, with honorable wounds,
And grasping gun or lance.
Our Mother, oh our country dear!
Our spirits now rejoice,
That we have found this gory bed,
Obedient to thy voice.
Oh, ’tis a glorious privilege
Thy chosen sons to be,
To pour our life-blood in the cause
Of Freedom and of thee!
That blood shall be the fruitful seed,
In fertile furrows cast,
Of deeds heroic to thy sons,
While Heaven and earth shall last;
And, like the seed by Cadmus sown,
In ages long gone by,
’Twill raise a host of armed men,
Whose glory will not die!
Oh, Brothers! would you honor us,
As to us seemeth right;
To us erect no monument,
No fulsome praise indite;
But, fight like men, as we have fought;
Meet death with fearless eye;
And thus our blood shall serve to tinge
The dawn of Liberty!
But, when the final hour had come,
Our braves should bid adieu to home;
Ah! there were partings which might wake
The soul to woe, and blanch the cheek;
For never more in converse sweet
Might kindred souls and glances meet:
Then, many a tender wife confessed
The anxious feelings of her breast;
And, as the fount of grief she woke,
Thus to her husband, sobbing spoke: