The American Flag
by
Joseph Rodman Drake (1795 - 1820) |
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When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her
standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its
gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And
striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the
morning light,
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She
called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty
hand
The symbol of her chosen land!
Majestic
monarch of the cloud!
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest-tramping loud,
And see the
lightning-lances driven,
When stride the warriors of the
storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven!
Child of
the sun! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the
free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the
battle stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like
rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!
Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of
hope and triumph high!
When speaks the signal-trumpet
tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on,
(Ere yet
the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glist'ning
bayonet),
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To
where thy meteor-glories burn,
And, as his springing
steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance!
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths
the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,
Like
shoots of flame on midnight's pall!
There shall thy
victor-glances glow,
And cowering foes shall shrink
beneath,
Each gallant arm that strikes below,
The
lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas! on
ocean's wave
Thy star shall glitter o'er the brave;
When Death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round
the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
The dying wanderer
of the sea
Shall look, at once, to heaven and thee,
And smile, to see thy splendors fly,
In triumph, o'er his
closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given!
Thy stars have lit the
welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven!
[And fixed as yonder orb divine,
That saw thy
bannered blaze unfurled,
Shall thy proud stars
resplendent shine,
The guard and glory of the world.]
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the
foe but falls before us?
With Freedom's soil beneath our
feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us! |
By Joseph Rodman Drake (1795 -
1820)
Listed June 28, 2012 |
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Note:
(May 29, 1819)
The penultimate quatrain
[enclosed in brackets] ended the poem
as Drake wrote it, but
Fits Greene Halleck suggested the final four
lines, and Drake
accepted his friend's quatrain in place of his
own.
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