Let the proud deeds of your fathers inspire ye still,
Think ye of Monmouth, and Princeton, and Bunker Hill,
Come from your hallowed graves, famous in story,
Shades of our heroes, and lead us to glory.
Side by side, son and father with hoary head
Struggle for triumph, or death on a gory bed.
Hark! to the charge! the war-hail is pattering,
The foe through our ranks red rain is scattering;
Huzza! forward! no halting or flagging till
Proudly the red stripes float o'er yon rocky hill.
Northern and Southerner, let your feuds smolder;
Charge! for our banner's fame, shoulder to shoulder!
Flash the fort guns, and thunders their stunning swell
Far o'er the valley to white Popocatapetl,
Death revels high in the midst of the bloody sport,
Bursting in flame from each black-throated castle-port,
Press on the line with keen sabres dripping wet,
Cheer, as ye smite with the death-dealing bayonet!
Our bold Northern eagle, king of the firmament,
Shares with no rival the skies of the continent.
Yields the fierce foeman; down let his flag be hurled,
Shout, as our own from the turret is wide unfurled!
Shout! for long shall Mexico mourn the wreck
Of her proud state at the siege of Chapultepec.
William Haines Lytle.
While these victories were being won in Mexico, General Stephen W. Kearny, at the head of the Army of the West, had seized the territory of New Mexico, and established a civil government at Santa Fé. He then proceeded to California, defeated the Mexicans at Sacramento, and took possession of that province.
ILLUMINATION FOR VICTORIES IN MEXICO
Light up thy homes, Columbia,
For those chivalric men
Who bear to scenes of warlike strife
Thy conquering arms again,
Where glorious victories, flash on flash,
Reveal their stormy way,—
Resaca's, Palo Alto's fields,
The heights of Monterey!
They pile with thousands of thy foes
Buena Vista's plain;
With maids and wives, at Vera Cruz,
Swell high the list of slain!
They paint upon the Southern skies
The blaze of burning domes,—
Their laurels dew with blood of babes!
Light up, light up thy homes!
Light up your homes, O fathers!
For those young hero bands,
Whose march is still through vanquished towns,
And over conquered lands!
Whose valor, wild, impetuous,
In all its fiery glow,
Pours onward like a lava-tide,
And sweeps away the foe!