S

STAND BY THE FLAG!

JOHN NICHOLS WILDER

TAND by the Flag! Its stars, like meteors gleaming,

Have lighted Arctic icebergs, Southern seas,

And shown responsive to the stony beaming

Of old Arcturus and the Pleiades.

Stand by the Flag! Its stripes have streamed in glory,
To foes a fear, to friends a festal robe,

And spread in rhythmic lines the sacred story
Of freedom's triumphs over all the globe.

Stand by the Flag! On land and ocean billow,
By it your fathers stood, unmoved and true;
Living, defended; dying, from their pillow
With their last blessing passed it on to you.

Stand by the Flag! Immortal heroes bore it
Through sulphurous smoke, deep moat, and armed
defence,

And their imperial shades still hover o'er it,
A guard celestial from Omnipotence.

Stand by the Flag, though death shots round it rattle,
And underneath its waving folds have met,

In all the dread array of sanguine battle,
The quiv'ring lance and glitt'ring bayonet!

Stand by the Flag, all doubt and danger scorning!

Believe, with courage firm and faith sublime, That it shall float until th' eternal morning Pales in its glories all the lights of Time.

CARMEN BELLICOSUM

GUY HUMPHREYS MCMASTER

N their ragged regimentals
Stood the old Continentals,
Yielding not,

When the grenadiers were lunging,
And like hail fell the plunging

Cannon shot;

When the files

Of the isles,

From their smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant

Unicorn,

And grummer, grummer, grummer, roll'd the roll of the drummer,

Through the morn!

Then with eyes to the front all,
And guns horizontal,

Stood our sires;

And the balls whistled deadly,

And in streams flashing redly

Blazed the fires;

As the roar

On the shore,

Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green sodded acres

Of the plain;

And louder, louder, louder, cracked the black gunpowder,

Cracking amain !

Now like smiths at their forges
Worked the red Saint George's
Cannoniers,

And the "villanous saltpetre'

Rung a fierce, discordant metre 'Round their ears;

As the swift

Storm-drift,

With hot, sweeping anger, came the Horse Guards' clangour

On our flanks;

And higher, higher, higher, burned the old-fashioned fire

Through the ranks!

Then the old-fashioned Colonel
Galloped through the white infernal
Powder cloud;

His broad-sword was swinging,

And his brazen throat was ringing
Trumpet loud ;

Then the blue
Bullets flew,

And the trooper-jackets redden at the touch of the leaden

Rifle-breath;

And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared our iron six

pounder,

Hurling death!