Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/264

 254 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Yet to the wise it matters nought What way he goes to dust ;

The sole thing worthy of his thought Is, if his cause be just;

And, if he's right, he'll act, nor think

Whether he's doomed to swim or sink.

��Dear country, nought in death I dread,

Save that but once I fall, And slumber idly with the dead,

When thou hast need of all ; Thy living sons shall all defend, While I with senseless earth must blend.

Thy cause requires a million hands

To battle with thy foes. Lives numerous as the ocean sands ;

I have but one to lose. Yet, though the sacrifice be small, Disdain not, since I give thee all.

O that my blood from out the ground, 'Neath God's inspiring breath.

Might at thy trumpet's piercing sound One instant leap from death.

Each drop a man, each man a spy.

Foredoomed in thy great cause to die.

How blest even so to serve thee still. Slain o'er, and o'er, and o'er !

From field to field, from hill to hill, Fd chase thy cannon's roar,

And shed my blood like showers of rain,

And fall, and rise, and fall again.

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