Up, up with the banner, the foe is before us,
His bayonets bristle, his sword is unsheathed,
Charge, charge on his line with harmonious chorus,
For the prayers go with us that beauty has breathed.
He fights for the power of despot and plunder,
While we are defending our altars and homes;
He has riven the firmly knit Union asunder,
And to bind it with tyranny’s fetters he comes,
Like the prophet Mokanna, whose veil so resplendent,
His monstrous deformity closely concealed;
Duplicity marks Lincoln’s course, and dependent
On falsehood is every fair promise revealed.
When that veil shall be raised, Freedom’s last feast be taken,
A banquet to which all his followers will crowd;
Oh, horror of horrors! who can view it unshaken?
Without sense they will sit all in suppliance bowed!
We do not forget that they once were our brothers,
That we sat in our boyhood around the same board,
That our heart’s best idolatry blest the same mothers,
And to the same fathers libations we poured.
We rallied around the same star-spangled standard,
When called to the field by the tocsin of war,
But they from our side have unfeelingly wandered,
And we strip from our flag every recusant star.
They have forced us to stand by our own constitution,
To defend our lov’d homesteads, our altars and fires,
While they tamely submit to a tyrant’s pollution,
Beneath whose foul tread their own freedom expires.
Then up with the banner, its broad stripes wide flowing,
’Tis the emblem of Liberty—flag of the free;
Let it wave us to triumph, and every heart glowing,
Nerve each arm’s bravest blows for its lov’d Tennessee. |