SONG OF MARION'S MEN

Ο

UR 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 walks of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,

Its safe and silent islands

Within the dark morass.

Woe to the English soldiery
That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear;
When, waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem

A mighty host behind,

And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind

Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil;

We talk the battle over,

And share the battle's spoil.

The woodland rings with laugh and shout,

As if a hunt were up,

And woodland flowers are gathered

To crown the soldier's cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads-

The glitter of their rifles,

The scampering of their steeds. 'Tis life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlight plain; 'Tis life to feel the night-wind That lifts his tossing mane. A moment in the British campA moment and away,

Back to the pathless forest,

Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs;
Their hearts are all with Marion,

For Marion are their prayers.

And lovely ladies greet our band,
With kindest welcoming,

With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,
Forever, from our shore.

-William Cullen Bryant

THE DRUM

HARK! I hear the tramp of thousands,

And of armèd men the hum;
Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered
Round the quick alarming drum,—
Saying, "Come,

Freemen, come!

Ere your heritage be wasted," said the quick alarmdrum.

"Let me of my heart take counsel:

War is not of life the sum;

Who shall stay and reap the harvest

When the autumn days shall come?"
But the drum

Echoed, "Come!

Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the sol

emn-sounding drum.

"But when won the coming battle,
What of profit springs therefrom?
What if conquest, subjugation,
Even greater ills become?"
But the drum

Answered, "Come!

You must do the sum to prove it," said the Yankeeanswering drum.

"What if, 'mid the cannons' thunder,
Whistling shot and bursting bomb,

When my brothers fall around me,

Should

my heart grow cold and numb?" But the drum

Answered, "Come!

Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,Come!"

Thus they answered-hoping, fearing,

Some in faith, and doubting some,
Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,
Said, "My chosen people, come!"
Then the drum,

Lo! was dumb,

For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, answered, "Lord, we come!"

-Bret Harte

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of

the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps,

I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of

steel;

"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal:

Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;