Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/78

72

No more, then, now no more

'Tis ours to watch by the burning lake,

But ours, thank God, to wage this war,

Thank God—for freedom's sake,

Till freedom shall be strong

Through hell her heavenly work to do;

For force is neither right nor wrong

But the use we put it to.

So this is the pledge we plight:

That we can fight, who do not hate,

And we for freedom's love will fight

In the venomed teeth of fate.

Gird, then, our hearts to blaze

Once more through battle's black alarms,

God of our fathers, and upraise

America in arms!