Sons of the South, arouse to battle! Gird on your armor for the fight! The Northern Thugs, with dread “war’s rattle,” Pour on each vale, and glen, and height; Meet them as ocean meets in madness The frail bark on the rocky shore, When crested billows roam and roar, And the wrecked crew go down in sadness: Chorus.—Arm! Arm! ye Southern braves! Scatter yon vandal hordes! Despots and bandits, fitting food For vultures and your swords. Shall dastard tyrants march their legions To crush the land of Jackson—Lee? Shall freedom fly to other regions, And sons of Yorktown bend the knee? Or shall their “footprints’ base pollution” Of Southern soil in blood be purged, And every flying slave be scourged Back to his snows in wild confusion. Chorus. Vile despots, with their minions knavish, Would drag us back to their embrace; Will freemen brook a chain so slavish? Will brave men take so low a place? O, Heaven! for words—the loathing, scorning We feel for such a Union’s bands: To paint with more than mortal hands, And sound our loudest notes of warning. Chorus. What! Union with a race ignoring The charter of our Nation’s birth? Union with bastard slaves adoring The fiend that chains them to the earth? No! we reply in tones of thunder, No! our staunch hills fling back the sound— No! our hoarse cannon echo round— No! evermore remain asunder! Chorus. |