BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

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He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call

retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment

seat;

Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. Tell how the Battle Hymn came to be written and sung. 2. Why did God seem to be the moving force in the efforts to put down slavery?

3. Explain the first line; the second.

4. In what sense had they "builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps"?

5. What is the "righteous sentence"?

6. Interpret in your own words the "fiery gospel" in the third

stanza.

7. Explain the second line in stanza four.

8. Why did the last stanza so affect the grizzled old Torpenhow? 9. What change in the wording of the refrain at the close of each stanza?

10. What is added to the meaning of the refrain with each successive stanza?

11. What is the secret of the power of this poem over the hearts of men?

Father Abraham.

REFERENCES

KEY: Star Spangled Banner.

SMITH: America.

EMMETT: Dixie.

Bonnie Blue Flag.

When Johnnie Comes Marching Home.

FINCH: The Blue and the Gray.

BRYANT: The Battlefield.

LONGFELLOW: The Arsenal.

HOPKINSON: Hail Columbia!

THE

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

THEODORE O'HARA

HE horrors of war make us sometimes wish it were not the theme of so many poems. Few conditions of national life, however, are conducive to so elevated a spirit of patriotism as the time immediately succeeding a war carried on by participants fighting for what they rightly or wrongly judge a just cause.

Theodore O'Hara, a fiery American of Irish parentage, was of a spirit whose patriotism knew no bounds. A soldier, who had performed valiant service for his country on foreign soil, and had shed his blood at her behest, he was a fitting eulogist of his dead comradesat-arms. The following poem was written in memory of the Kentucky soldiers who had been killed in the battle of Buena Vista, and whose ashes were being removed to their native state. Its stirring word pictures, its dignified and mournful melody, and its proud and profound appreciation of the valor of those whose lives had been given to their country, brought a prompt and thankful response from loyal hearts. Carved on slabs of stone and graven on tablets of bronze, stanzas of this poem have been placed by order of the government in Arlington Cemetery near Washington, and in nearly all the other national soldiers' burying grounds provided by this nation.

It has become an international funeral hymn to martyred soldiers, as is shown by its having been se

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

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lected for an epitaph on a monument erected on a battle field of the distant Crimea.

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms;

No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed.
The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past.
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps his great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was "Victory or Death!"

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;

Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their father's gore

His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would pour

Their lives for glory too.

Full many a norther's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain,

And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its mouldered slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave:

She claims from war the richest spoil-
The ashes of her brave.

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast
On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of holy light

That gilds your deathless tomb.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. What spirit prevails in the first four stanzas?

2. To what are the next four devoted?

3. Why was the watchword "Victory or Death"?

4. Who was the stout old chieftain, line 51?

5. Where were the "rivers of their fathers' gore" shed?

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