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THE MARCH OF THE REGIMENT.
BY H. H. BROWNELL, U. S. N.
HERE they come! 't is the Twelfth, you know, The colonel is just at hand;
The ranks close up, to the measured flow Of music cheery and grand. Glitter on glitter, row by row, The steady bayonets, on they go
For God and the right to stand : Another thousand to front the foe! And to die - if it must be even so For the dear old fatherland!
O trusty and true! O gay, warm heart! O manly and earnest brow !
Here, in the hurrying street, we part - To meet ah! where and how?
O ready and stanch! who, at war's alarm, On lonely hill-side and mountain-farm Have left the axe and the plough! That every tear were a holy charm, To guard, with honor, some head from harm, And to quit some generous vow! For, of valiant heart and of sturdy arm Was never more need than now.
Never a nobler morn to the bold, For God and for country's sake! Lo! a flag, so haughtily unrolled On a hundred foughten fields of old, Now flaunts in a pirate's wake! The lion coys in each blazoned fold, And leers on the blood-barred snake!
O base and vain! that, for grudge and gain, Could a century's feud renew, -
Could hoard your hate for the coward chance When a nation reeled in a wilder dance
Of death, than the Switzer drew!
We have borne and borne and may bear again With wrong, but if wrong from you.
Welcome, the sulphury cloud in the sky! Welcome, the crimson rain!
Act but the dream ye dared to form, Strike a single spark! - and the storm Of serried bayonets sweeping by, Shall swell to a hurricane!
O blind and bitter! that could not know, Even in fight, a caitiff-blow, (Foully dealt on a hard-set foe,) Ever is underwise; Ever is ghosted with after fear, - Ye might lesson it,
Looking, with fevered eyes, For sail or smoke from the Breton shore, Lest a land, so rudely wronged of yore, In flamy revenge should rise!
Office at outcry! - ah! wretched Flam! Vile Farce of hammer and prate ! Trade! bids Darby and blood! smirks Pam Little ween they, each courtly Sham, Of the Terror lying in wait! Little wot of the web he spins,
Their Tempter in purple, that darkly grins 'Neath his stony visor of state,
O'er Seas, how narrow! for, whoso wins, At yon base Auction of Outs and Ins,
The rule of his Dearest Hate;
Her point once flashing athwart her Kin's, And the reckoning, ledgered for long, begins,
THE MARCH OF THE REGIMENT. 123
The galling Glories and envied Sins Shall buzz in a mesh-like fate!
Ay, mate your meanest ! ye can but do That permitted; when Heaven would view How Wrong, self-branded, her rage must rue In wreck and ashes! (such scene as you, If wise, shall witness afar); How Guilt, o'erblown, her crest heaves high, And dares the injured, with taunt, to try Ordeal of Fire in war; Blindfold and brazen, on God doth call Then grasps in horror, the glaring ball, Or treads on the candent bar!
Yet a little! - and men shall mark This our Moloch, who sate so stark, (These hundred winters through godless dark
Grinning o'er death and shame); Marking for murder each unbowed head, Throned on his Ghizeh of bones, and fed Still with hearts of the holy dead, Naught but a Spectre foul and dread,
Naught but a hideous Name! At last! - (ungloom, stern coffined frown! Rest thee, Gray-Steel! -- aye, dead Renown! In flame and thunder, by field and town, The Giant-Horror is going down,
Down to the Home whence it came!)
Deaf to the Doom that waits the Beast, Still would she share the Harlot's Feast, And drink of her blood-grimed Cup! Pause! the Accursed, on yon frenzied shore, Buyeth your merchandise never more! Mark, 'mid the Fiery Dew that drips, Redder, faster, through black Eclipse,
How Sodom, to-night, shall sup!
(Thus the Kings, in Apocalypse, The traders of souls, and crews of ships, Standing afar, with pallid lips,
While Babylon's smoke goes up!)
Yet, dree your weird! - though an hour may blight, In treason, a century's fame
Trust Greed and Spite! - sith Reason and Right Lie cold, with Honor and Shame ; And learn anon as on that dread night
When, the dead around and the deck aflame, From John Paul's lip the fierce word came, "We have only begun to fight!"
Ay, 't is at hand! - foul lips, be dumb! Our Armageddon is yet to come! But cheery bugle and angry drum,
With volleyed rattle and roar, And cannon thunder-throb, shall be drowned, That day, in a grander, stormier sound ;
The Land, from mountain to shore, Hurling shackle and scourge and stake Back to their Lender of pit and lake;
('T was Tophet leased them of yore), Hell, in her murkiest hold, shall quake,
As they ring on the damned floor! O mighty Heart! thou wast long to wake, - 'T is thine, to-morrow, to win or break In a deadlier close once more, If but for the dear and glorious sake
Of those who have gone before.
O Fair and Faithful! that, sun by sun, Slept on the field, or lost or won, Children dear of the Holy One! Rest in your wintry sod.
Rest, your noble devoir is done, - Done- and forever! Ours, to-day, The dreary drift and the frozen clay
By trampling armies trod;
The smoky shroud of the War-Simoom, The maddened Crime at bay with her Doom,
And fighting it, clod by clod.
O Calm and Glory! - beyond the gloom,
Above the bayonets bend and bloom
The lilies and palms of God.
BY A. J. H. DUGANNE.
MOUTH not to me your Union rant, Nor gloze mine ears with loyal cant! Who stands this day in freedom's van, He only is my Union man! Who tramples Slavery's Gesler hat, He is my loyal Democrat!
With whips, engirt by chains, too long We strove to make our fasces strong; When rebel hands those fasces rend, Must we with whips and chains still mend ? If " Democrats" can stoop to that, God help me! I'm no Democrat !
Thank Heaven! the lines are drawn this hour 'Twixt manly Right and despot Power; Who scowls in Freedom's pathway now Bears "tyrant" stamped upon his brow; Who skulks aloof or shirks his part, Hath "slave" imprinted in his heart.
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