New World and Old Glory Rolled in triumphant blood. This was what "freedom" lent To the black regiment. Hundreds on hundreds fell; Scorn the black regiment! GEORGE HENRY BOKER. Five seconds-it couldn't be more And the whole Swarm was humming and alive (We were on an enemy's shore.) With savage haste, in the dark, How the berth deck buzzed and swore! The third of minutes ten, And half a thousand men, From the dream-gulf, dead and deep, Of the seamen's measured sleep, In the taking of a lunar, In the serving of a ration, Every man at his station!- Three and a quarter, or sooner! Never a skulk to be seen- From the look-out aloft to the gunner Lurking in his black magazine. New World and Old Glory There they stand, still as death, It may be,) we of the Staff, But, somehow, every hand Feels for hilt and brand, Tries if buckle and frog be tight, So, in the chilly breeze, we stand, Peering through the dimness of the night— Grim and silent at the guns, But, as we look aloft, There, all white and soft, Floated on the fleecy clouds, 'Mid the black masts and spars And the great maze of lifts and shrouds! HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL. (Flag Ship" Hartford," May, 1864.) Battle-Hymn of the Republic New World Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of and Old 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 can 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; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Glory New World and Old Glory Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him,-be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. JULIA WARD HOWE. Sheridan's Ride* October 19, 1864. Up from the South at break of day, And wider still those billows of war By courtesy of J. B. Lippincott & Co. |