[1861] lay down the axe, fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman’s crookèd brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field. Our country calls; away! away! To where the blood-stream blots the green; Strike to defend the gentlest sway That Time in all his course has seen. See, from a thousand coverts—see Spring the armed foes that haunt her track; They rush to smite her down, and we Must beat the banded traitors back. Ho! sturdy as the oaks ye cleave, And moved as soon to fear and flight, Men of the glade and forest! leave Your woodcraft for the field of fight. The arms that wield the axe must pour An iron tempest on the foe; His serried ranks shall reel before The arm that lays the panther low. And ye who breast the mountain storm By grassy steep or highland lake, Come, for the land ye love, to form A bulwark that no foe can break. Stand, like your own gray cliffs that mock The whirlwind; stand in her defence: The blast as soon shall move the rock, As rushing squadrons bear ye thence. And ye whose homes are by her grand Swift rivers, rising far away, Come from the depth of her green land As mighty in your march as they; As terrible as when the rains Have swelled them over bank and bourne, With sudden floods to drown the plains And sweep along the woods uptorn. And ye who throng beside the deep, Her ports and hamlets of the strand, In number like the waves that leap On his long-murmuring marge of sand, Come, like that deep, when, o’er his brim, He rises, all his floods to pour, And flings the proudest barks that swim, A helpless wreck against his shore. Few, few were they whose swords of old Won the fair land in which we dwell; But we are many, we who hold The grim resolve to guard it well. Strike for that broad and goodly land, Blow after blow, till men shall see That Might and Right move hand in hand, And Glorious must their triumph be.
Our Country’s Call
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OUR 1 band is few, but true and tried, Our leader frank and bold; The British soldier trembles When Marion’s name is told. Our fortress is the good greenwood, Our tent the cypress-tree; We know the forest round us, As seamen know the sea; We know its walls of thorny vines, Its glades... |
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[1861] lay down the axe, fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman’s crookèd brand, and rein The charger on the... |
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