Joseph Rodman Drake.
STAND BY THE FLAG.
Stand by the flag! on land and ocean billow;
By it your fathers stood, unmoved and true;
Living, defended; dying, from their pillow,
With their last blessing, passed it on to you.
The lines that divide us are written in water,
The love that unite us is cut deep as rock.
Thus by friendship’s ties united,
We will change the bloody past