Never, while such as ye are in the breach,
Oh! brothers, sons, and Southrons--never! never!
Shall the foul enemy your city reach!
For souls and hearts are eager with endeavor;
And God's own sanction on your cause, makes holy
Each arm that strikes for home, however lowly!--
And ye shall conquer by the rolling deep!--
And ye shall conquer on the embattled steep!--
And ye shall see Leviathan go down
A hundred fathoms, with a horrible cry
Of drowning wretches, in their agony--
While Slaughter wades in gore along the sands,
And Terror flies with pleading, outstretched hands,
All speechless, but with glassy-staring eyes--
Flying to Fate--and fated as he flies;--
Seeking his refuge in the tossing wave,
That gives him, when the shark has fed, a grave!



II.


Thus saith the Lord of Battles: "Shall it be,
That this great city, planted by the sea,
With threescore thousand souls--with fanes and spires
Reared by a race of unexampled sires--
That I have watched, now twice a hundred years,[1]
Nursed through long infancy of hopes and fears,
Baptized in blood at seasons, oft in tears;