Fling wide the dauntless banner
To every Southern breeze,
Baptized in flame, with Sumter’s name—
A patriot and a hero’s fame—
From Moultrie to the seas!
That it may cleave the morning sun
And, streaming, sweep the night,
The emblem of a battle won
With Yankee ships in sight.
Come, hucksters, from your markets,
Come, bigots, from your caves,
Come, venal spies, with brazen lies
Bewildering your deluded eyes,
That we may dig your graves;
Come, creatures of a sordid clown
And driveling traitor’s breath,
A single blast shall blow you down
Upon the fields of Death.
The very flag you carry
Caught its reflected grace,
In fierce alarms, from Southern arms,
When foemen threatened all your farms,
And never saw your face;
Ho! braggarts of New England’s shore,
Back to your hills and delve
The soil whose craven sons foreswore
The flag in eighteen-twelve!
We wreathed around the roses
It wears before the world,
And made it bright with storied light,
In every scene of bloody fight
Where it has been unfurled;
And think ye, now, the dastard hands
That never yet could hold
Its staff, shall wave it o’er our lands,
To glut the greed of gold?
No! by the truth of Heaven
And its eternal Sun,
By every sire whose altar fire
Burns on to beckon and inspire,
It never shall be done;
Before that day the kites shall wheel
Hail-thick on Northern heights,
And there our bared, aggressive steel
Shall countersign our rights!
Then spread the flaming banner
O’er mountain, lake, and plain,
Before its bars, degraded Mars
Has kissed the dust with all his stars,
And will be struck again;
For could its triumph now be stayed
By Hell’s prevailing gates,
A sceptred Union would be made
The grave of sovereign States. |