GEORGE POPE MORRIS
THE FLAG OF OUR UNION.
A song for our banner, the watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
“United we stand—divided we fall!”
It made and preserves us a nation.
The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever!
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the Flag of our Union forever and ever,
The Flag of our Union forever!
What God in his infinite wisdom designed,
And armed with republican thunder,
Not all the earth’s despots and factions combined
Have the power to conquer or sunder.
The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever!
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the Flag of our Union forever and ever,
The Flag of our Union forever!
Oh, keep that flag flying! The pride of the van!
To all other nations display it!
The ladies for union are to a—man!
And not to the man who’d betray it.
Then the union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever!
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the Flag of the Union forever!
—George P. Morris.
The author of The Flag of our Union was one of the most distinguished journalists of the early half of the nineteenth century in America. He was for many years the editor of the Mirror, which was in its time the best literary magazine in the country. Such men as William Cullen Bryant, Fitz-Green Halleck, Nathaniel P. Willis, Theodore S. Fay, and Epes Sargent found in its pages a chance to express the poetry, romance, and philosophy which flowed from their brilliant and graceful pens.
Morris was the author of many songs and poems that have become household words throughout the land. Who does not recall,—
“Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.
’Twas my forefather’s hand
That placed it near his cot:
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy ax shall harm it not!”