NEW ENGLAND'S dead!
New England's dead!
On every hill they lie;
On every
field of strife, made red
By bloody victory.
Each
valley, where the battle poured
Its red and awful tide,
Beheld the brave New England sword
With slaughter deeply
dyed.
Their bones are on the northern hill,
And on the
southern plain,
By brook and river, lake and rill,
And
by the roaring main.
The land is holy where they
fought,
And holy where they fell;
For by their blood
that land was bought,
The land they loved so well.
Then glory to that valiant band,
The honored saviours of
the land!
O, few and weak their numbers were,
A
handful of brave men;
But to their God they gave their
prayer,
And rushed to battle then.
The God of battles
heard their cry,
And sent to them the victory.
They left the ploughshare in the mould,
Their flocks and
herds without a fold,
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn, half-garnered, on the plain,
And mustered, in
their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress,
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,
To perish, or
o'ercome their foe.
And where are ye, O fearless men?
And where are ye to-day?
I call:�the hills reply again
That ye have passed away;
That on old Bunker's lonely
height,
In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground,
The grass
grows green, the harvest bright
Above each soldier's
mound.
The bugle's wild and warlike blast
Shall muster
them no more;
An army now might thunder past,
And they
heed not its roar.
The starry flag, 'neath which they
fought
In many a bloody day,
From their old graves
shall rouse them not,
For they have passed away. |
