Oh, the tocsin of war still resounds o’er the land,
And legions of braves are now rushing to battle,
Our lint-stocks are lighted, our guns are all manned,
Loud thunders the cannon, and musketry rattle,
Our hosts there are led
By the blue, white and red,
While the battle fiend flaps his pale wing o’er the dead.
Chorus.—Let the bars and stars of our banner ever wave
O’er the land of the South, the home of the brave.
O, say, can you see through the mist and the gloom,
Through the clouds of the battle our stars brightly shining,
’Tis a beacon of hope, ’tis a signal of doom
To the hordes of the vandals our borders now lining;
Proud defiance we hurl
And our flag we unfurl,
Let it float, proudly float, in the gaze of the world.
Chorus.
For thirty years or more, we have waited and prayed
That the chains of oppression and wrongs might be sundered,
But the black fiends of the North, with their plans foully laid,
Have raised up a whirlwind and the old ship’s now foundered.
We shouted the alarm,
We spoke of our wrongs,
Now the argument’s exhausted, we’ll stand by our arms.
Chorus.
Oh! Manassas has been fought, and the field has been won,
And the brag guns of Sherman our brave boys have taken;
Our foes have retreated back to old Washington,
But the ranks of our Dixie still remain there unshaken;
And over the graves
Of the New York Zouaves
The bars and the stars now triumphantly waves.
Chorus. |