It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,
And every true soldier believed it.
But our boys thought little of price or pay,
Or of bills that were overdue—
We knew if it brought us our bread to-day
'Twas the best our poor country could do.
Keep it! It tells all our history over,
From the birth of our dream till its last;
Modest, and born of the angel Hope,
Like our visions of glory, it passed.