THERE’S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET.
Reading edition
By JAMES R. RANDALL.
[First printed in the Richmond Examiner. Written while the author was in prison.]
By the blue Patapsco’s billowy dash The tyrant’s war-shout comes, Along with cymbal’s fitful clash, And the growl of his sullen drums. We hear it, we heed it with vengeful thrills, And we shall not forgive or forget; There’s faith in the streams, there’s hope in the hills, There’s life in the old land yet! Minions! we sleep but we are not dead; We are crushed, we are scourged, we are scarred; We crouch—’t is to welcome the triumph tread Of the peerless Beauregard. Then woe to your vile, polluting horde, When the Southern braves are met; There’s faith in the victor’s stainless sword, There’s life in the old land yet! Bigots! ye quell not the valiant mind With the clank of an iron chain; The spirit of freedom sings in the wind, O’er Merriman, Thomas, and Kane; And we, though we smile not, are not thralls,— Are piling a gory debt; While down by McHenry’s dungeon walls There’s life in the old land yet! Our women have hung their harps away, And they scowl on your brutal bands, While the nimble poniard dares the day, In their dear, defiant hands. They will strip their tresses to string our bows, Ere the Northern sun is set; There’s faith in their unrelenting woes, There’s life in the old land yet! There’s life, though it throbbeth in silent veins,— ’T is vocal without noise; It gushed o’er Manassas’ solemn plains, From the blood of the Maryland Boys! That blood shall cry aloud, and rise With an everlasting threat; By the death of the brave, by the God in the skies, There’s life in the old land yet! [Southern.]
