TREASON'S LAST DEVICE
[January 19, 1863]
"Who deserves greatness
Deserves your hate....
Yon common cry of curs, whose breath I loathe
As reek o' the rotten fens."
Coriolanus.
"Hark! hark! the dogs do bark."
Nursery Rhyme.
Sons of New England, in the fray,
Do you hear the clamor behind your back?
Do you hear the yelping of Blanche and Tray?
Sweetheart, and all the mongrel pack?
Girded well with her ocean crags,
Little our mother heeds their noise;
Her eyes are fixed on crimsoned flags:
But you—do you hear it, Yankee boys?
Do you hear them say that the patriot fire
Burns on her altars too pure and bright,
To the darkened heavens leaping higher,
Though drenched with the blood of every fight?
That in the light of its searching flame
Treason and tyrants stand revealed,
And the yielding craven is put to shame
On Capitol floor or foughten field?
Do you hear the hissing voice, which saith
That she—who bore through all the land
The lyre of Freedom, the torch of Faith,
And young Invention's mystic wand—
Should gather her skirts and dwell apart,
With not one of her sisters to share her fate,—
A Hagar, wandering sick at heart?
A pariah, bearing the Nation's hate?
Sons, who have peopled the distant West,
And planted the Pilgrim vine anew,
Where, by a richer soil carest,
It grows as ever its parent grew,—
Say, do you hear,—while the very bells
Of your churches ring with her ancient voice,
And the song of your children sweetly tells
How true was the land of your fathers' choice,—