IN WAR TIME
Her eyes are fixed on crimsoned flags:
But you—do you hear it, Yankee boys?
Do you hear them say that the patriot fire
Burns on her altars too pure and bright,
To the darkened heavens leaping higher,
Though drenched with the blood of every fight;
That in the light of its searching flame
Treason and tyrants stand revealed,
And the yielding craven is put to shame,
On Capitol floor or foughten field?
Do you hear the hissing voice, which saith
That she—who bore through all the land
The lyre of Freedom, the torch of Faith,
And young Invention's mystic wand—
Should gather her skirts and dwell apart,
With not one of her sisters to share her fate,—
A Hagar, wandering sick at heart;
A pariah, bearing the Nation's hate?
Sons, who have peopled the distant West,
And planted the Pilgrim vine anew,
Where, by a richer soil carest,
It grows as ever its parent grew,
Say, do you hear,—while the very bells
Of your churches ring with her ancient voice,
And the song of your children sweetly tells
How true was the land of your fathers' choice,—
Do you hear the traitors who bid you speak
The word that shall sever the sacred tie?
And ye, who dwell by the golden Peak,
Has the subtle whisper glided by?
Has it crost the immemorial plains,
To coasts where the gray Pacific roars
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